white picket fence
Yard's classic border
A white picket fence is the stereotypical boundary marker of an idealized American home—a row of evenly spaced pointed wooden slats, painted white, surrounding a yard.
The image evokes suburban domestic contentment, traditional family life, and middle-class aspiration: She wanted the whole package—marriage, kids, white picket fence.
Often used with slight irony to suggest the dream may be cliché or illusory.
Legally possessing residential property
- suburbiaResidential areas outside cities
- stabilityResistance to displacement
- securityProtection from threat
- prosperityGood fortune, success
middle class · aspiration · nuclear family · domestic bliss · traditional values · success · neighborhood · community
Fence of pointed stakes
- enclosureConfined, bordered space
- boundaryLine marking a limit
- perimeterShape's outer edge length
- gateHinged barrier in fence
railing · lattice · whitewash · posts · slats · garden border · front yard · property line
homeownership
Legally possessing residential property
- suburbiaResidential areas outside cities
- stabilityResistance to displacement
- securityProtection from threat
prosperity · middle class · aspiration · nuclear family · domestic bliss · traditional values · success · neighborhood · community · settling down
palisade
Fence of pointed stakes
gate · railing · lattice · whitewash · posts · slats · garden border · front yard · property line · wooden
- AmericanaAmerican flag, Fourth of July, bald eagle, Thanksgiving, apple pie
- Housing Dreamshomeownership, first home, starter home, forever home, dream house
- Small-Town Lifegeneral store, town square, front porch, church steeple, water tower
- suburbiasuburb, suburbs, suburbia, burbs, subdivision
- historic American homesplantation house, farmhouse, mansion, manor house, Cape Cod house
- 1950sEisenhower, poodle skirt, Elvis Presley, Rosa Parks, baby boom
white picket fencewrong side of the tracks
Socially undesirable neighborhood
skid row · urban decay · ghetto · slum · homelessness
white picket fencehomeless shelter
Temporary housing for vagrants
tenement · housing project · cardboard box · shanty · slum
white picket fencerazor wire
Bladed security fencing
privacy fence · barbed wire · concrete barrier · prison fence · border wall
white, picket, fence, whiter, whitest, whiten, whitened, whitening, whiteness