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Pick up   /pɪk əp/   Listen
verb
Pick  v. t.  (past & past part. picked; pres. part. picking)  
1.
To throw; to pitch. (Obs.) "As high as I could pick my lance."
2.
To peck at, as a bird with its beak; to strike at with anything pointed; to act upon with a pointed instrument; to pierce; to prick, as with a pin.
3.
To separate or open by means of a sharp point or points; as, to pick matted wool, cotton, oakum, etc.
4.
To open (a lock) as by a wire.
5.
To pull apart or away, especially with the fingers; to pluck; to gather, as fruit from a tree, flowers from the stalk, feathers from a fowl, etc.
6.
To remove something from with a pointed instrument, with the fingers, or with the teeth; as, to pick the teeth; to pick a bone; to pick a goose; to pick a pocket. "Did you pick Master Slender's purse?" "He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet."
7.
To choose; to select; to separate as choice or desirable; to cull; as, to pick one's company; to pick one's way; often with out. "One man picked out of ten thousand."
8.
To take up; esp., to gather from here and there; to collect; to bring together; as, to pick rags; often with up; as, to pick up a ball or stones; to pick up information.
9.
To trim. (Obs.)
To pick at, to tease or vex by pertinacious annoyance.
To pick a bone with. See under Bone.
To pick a thank, to curry favor. (Obs.)
To pick off.
(a)
To pluck; to remove by picking.
(b)
To shoot or bring down, one by one; as, sharpshooters pick off the enemy.
To pick out.
(a)
To mark out; to variegate; as, to pick out any dark stuff with lines or spots of bright colors.
(b)
To select from a number or quantity.
To pick to pieces, to pull apart piece by piece; hence (Colloq.), to analyze; esp., to criticize in detail.
To pick a quarrel, to give occasion of quarrel intentionally.
To pick up.
(a)
To take up, as with the fingers.
(b)
To get by repeated efforts; to gather here and there; as, to pick up a livelihood; to pick up news.


Pick  v. i.  
1.
To eat slowly, sparingly, or by morsels; to nibble. "Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore?"
2.
To do anything nicely or carefully, or by attending to small things; to select something with care.
3.
To steal; to pilfer. "To keep my hands from picking and stealing."
To pick up, to improve by degrees; as, he is picking up in health or business. (Colloq. U.S.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Pick up" Quotes from Famous Books



... not by that neatness which shows refinement, but by precision, which in dress is vulgar. One glance, and you saw the woman who in another age would have thrown her glove to the tiger for her lover to pick up! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Our friend Taylor had by this time been brought very low, or he would have held out for something better, but there was nothing to be done. He was starving, and he therefore accepted; came to London; got a room, one room only, near Clare Market, and began his new duties. He was able to pick up a shilling or two more weekly by going on errands for the clerks during his slack time in the day, so that altogether on the average he made up about eighteen shillings. Wandering about the Clare Market region on Sunday he found us out, came in, and remained constant. Naturally, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... from aloft, like a visiting-card by a lady: a single man turning a windlass, it sails into the air, gets up as high as it chooses to, and drops delicately just where it is wanted along the length of the structure. Out on the wharf a double "hoister," working by steam, and able to pick up and swing a hundred tons, is used in handling the materials of the works. The dry-docks are, in winter, a singular spectacle. They are a vast hospital of interesting invalids, the patients being steamers, barges and canal-boats. For instance, the old Edwin Forrest, which has paddled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... only with a classical air, and as a help lying next to them, instead of a salvation which they are obliged to seek. In jesting passages also it sometimes gave the rhyme a turn agreeably wilful, or an appearance of choosing what lay in its way; as if a man should pick up a stone to throw at another's head, where a less confident foot would have stumbled over it. Such is Dryden's use of the word might—the mere sign of a tense—in his pretended ridicule of the monkish practice of rising to sing psalms in ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... "But no! Wait. There is another thing—part of the same subject; and we ought to pick up all the pieces now while we are about it. Please sit down." She took the envelop containing Trent's manuscript despatch from the table where he had laid it. "I want to speak ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley


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