pick
Definitions
- A tool used for digging; a pickaxe.
- A surname.
- An anchor.
- To refute or find flaws in by close examination: The lawyer picked the testimony apart.
- A pointed hammer used for dressing millstones.
- To tease or bully.
- A tool for unlocking a lock without the original key; a lock pick, picklock.
- To sort out or examine item by item: picked over the grapes before buying them.
- A comb with long widely spaced teeth, for use with tightly curled hair.
- To select with great care.
- A tool used for strumming the strings of a guitar; a plectrum.
- To seek and discover flaws or a flaw in: picked holes in the argument.
- A pike or spike; the sharp point fixed in the center of a buckler.
- To find fault in a petty way; nitpick.
- A choice; ability to choose.
- To find passage and make careful progress through it: picked her way down the slope.
- That which would be picked or chosen first; the best.
- To criticize sharply.
- Pasture; feed, for animals.
- To throw (a shuttle) across a loom.
- A screen.
- pick someone's brains, to obtain information or ideas by questioning someone closely.
- An offensive tactic in which a player stands so as to block a defender from reaching a teammate.
- An interception.
- A good defensive play by an infielder.
- A pickoff.
- A particle of ink or paper embedded in the hollow of a letter, filling up its face, and causing a spot on a printed sheet.
- That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture.
- The blow that drives the shuttle, used in calculating the speed of a loom (in picks per minute); hence, in describing the fineness of a fabric, a weft thread.
Conjugation
Browse the table or drill it — all tenses, moods, and persons of pick.
Equivalents
43 more languages
Examples
“It's better to amble around, drop the "pick⟳" for a lunchtime swim⟳ or beachcomb, then find⟳ a nice anchorage for the night.”
“Take⟳ down my buckler […] and grind⟳ the pick⟳ on 't.”
“France and Russia have⟳ the pick⟳ of our stables.”
“‘She's all African grass and Brahmans. There's not a blade of native pick⟳ left, except on the ridges.’”
“The judicious use⟳ of fire could have⟳ protected valuable nut trees, promoted the growth and seeding of grass and, if practised at a distance from their camps, even attracted herbivores to the sweet young pick⟳.”
“If it be in the smallest degree gritty, it clogs the form⟳, and consequently produces a thick and imperfect impression; no pains should, therefore, be spared to render it perfectly smooth; it may then be made to work⟳ as clear and free from picks”
“so many picks to an inch”
CEFR level
A2
Elementary
This word is part of the CEFR A2 vocabulary — elementary level.
This word is part of the CEFR A2 vocabulary — elementary level.
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