(v.) 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.
(v.) To separate or open by means of a sharp point or points; as, to pick matted wool, cotton, oakum, etc.
(v.) To open (a lock) as by a wire.
(v.) 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.
(v.) 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.
(v.) 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.
(v.) 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.
(v.) To trim.
(v. i.) To eat slowly, sparingly, or by morsels; to nibble.
(v. i.) To do anything nicely or carefully, or by attending to small things; to select something with care.
(v. i.) To steal; to pilfer.
(n.) A sharp-pointed tool for picking; -- often used in composition; as, a toothpick; a picklock.
(n.) A heavy iron tool, curved and sometimes pointed at both ends, wielded by means of a wooden handle inserted in the middle, -- used by quarrymen, roadmakers, etc.; also, a pointed hammer used for dressing millstones.
(n.) A pike or spike; the sharp point fixed in the center of a buckler.
(n.) Choice; right of selection; as, to have one's pick.
(n.) That which would be picked or chosen first; the best; as, the pick of the flock.
(n.) A particle of ink or paper imbedded in the hollow of a letter, filling up its face, and occasioning a spot on a printed sheet.
(n.) That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture.
(n.) The blow which drives the shuttle, -- the rate of speed of a loom being reckoned as so many picks per minute; hence, in describing the fineness of a fabric, a weft thread; as, so many picks to an inch.
Example Sentences:
(1) S&P – the only one of the three major agencies not to have stripped the UK of its coveted AAA status – said it had been surprised at the pick-up in activity during 2013 – a year that began with fears of a triple-dip recession.
(2) The information about her father's semi-brainwashing forms an interesting backdrop to Malala's comments when I ask if she ever wonders about the man who tried to kill her on her way back from school that day in October last year, and why his hands were shaking as he held the gun – a detail she has picked up from the girls in the school bus with her at the time; she herself has no memory of the shooting.
(3) This is not for the most part revolutionary.” Trump has made some of his least ideological picks in the area of national security and foreign policy.
(4) Critics of wind power peddle the same old myths about investment in new energy sources adding to families' fuel bills , preferring to pick a fight with people concerned about the environment, than stand up to vested interests in the energy industry, for the hard-pressed families and pensioners being ripped off by the energy giants.
(5) Careless Herbicidal aerial spray of a field for weed control and defoliation of cotton before machine picking, resulted in the contamination of an adjoining reservoir, killing large volume of fish.
(6) It would cost their own businesses hundreds of millions of pounds in transaction costs, it would blow a massive hole in their balance of payments, it would leave them having to pick up the entirety of UK debt.
(7) Joe Gregory, parked outside the arena while waiting to pick up his girlfriend and her sister from the concert, captured its impact on his car’s dashcam.
(8) Everyone worked hard, but it is fair to pick out Willian because of his work-rate, quality on the ball, participation in the first goal and quality of the second.” It had been Willian’s fizzed cross, 11 minutes before the break, which Dragovic had nodded inadvertently inside Shovkovskiy’s near post to earn the hosts their initial lead.
(9) Taxpayers will pick up an immediate £40m bill for compensating the four shortlisted companies that bid for the west coast franchise.
(10) "While it seems possible that more will join the two MPC dissenters in coming months if wage growth picks up, it looks a long way to go before a majority on the MPC vote to raise interest rates," he said.
(11) Those are our picks, but what have you been enjoying on Android this week?
(12) Phil Barlow Nottingham • Reading about the problems caused by a lack of toilets reminded me of the harvest camps my father’s Birmingham school organised in the Vale of Evesham during the war, where the sixth-formers spent weeks picking fruit and vegetables on farms.
(13) This is no doubt a captain’s pick by Malcolm Turnbull and we hope for the sake of the relationship that it has been a good pick.” The planned appointment of Hockey to the Washington role has been one of the worst-kept secrets in Australian politics .
(14) Now another deep cross is thrown into the box and Guzan leaps to claim it, but can only parry it down and pick up the second ball.
(15) After winning his prize, Malcolm Turnbull must learn from Abbott's mistakes Read more Abbott appointed Warren Mundine to head his hand picked advisory council on Indigenous affairs.
(16) Trawling through the private telephone conversations of royals, politicians and celebrities in the hope of picking up scandalous gossip is not seen as legitimate news gathering and the techniques of entrapment which led to the recent Pakistani match-fixing scandal , although grudgingly admired in this particular case, are derided as manufacturing the news.
(17) This makes The Red Pill a continuous, multi-voiced, up-to-the-minute male complaint nestled at the heart of the so-called manosphere – a network of websites preoccupied with both the men’s rights movement and how to pick up women.
(18) We propose that MS at the age of 1 year 6 months would be more effective to pick up these cases, because treatment strategies depend on the different biological characteristics of tumor cells.
(19) Business picked up in the fourth quarter of 2013 but the consumer goods giant said those markets had continued to slow and it expected "ongoing volatility in the external environment".
(20) But I'm starting with the job that I can do something about right now – scrabbling around on the floor, picking up three-inch nails and cigarette butts so that the new four-year-olds will have somewhere safe to play at break.
Pickpocket
Definition:
(n.) One who steals purses or other articles from pockets.
Example Sentences:
(1) I've been mistaken for a parent, a pickpocket, and even, God forbid, an SUV owner, and I've always been able to brush it off.
(2) Moments later it was Ronaldo's run and cross that caused Gaël Clichy problems as Di Maria looked to pickpocket him, as the pattern of Real dominance continued.
(3) Documents published by the Hillsborough independent panel relating to the Sun's April 1989 "The Truth" front page splash, which falsely alleged that drunken Liverpool fans had urinated on police and pickpocketed the dead: 1.
(4) Apart from the sweat and steam they bring into the chapel, the sheer number of visitors has been criticised for giving the space the feel of a busy train station, complete with pickpockets.
(5) We need this type of framework to stop the government of the day pickpocketing the foreign aid budget at their will,” acting Greens leader Adam Bandt said.
(6) One sub-category that showed a 6% rise was personal thefts, such as pickpocketing and mobile phone snatches.
(7) Excluding the foreigner-specific crimes, Germans committed three-quarters of offences recorded in 2015, but crimes by non-Germans were up 12.8%, including document forgery, pickpocketing and home burglaries, De Maizière said.
(8) After one of his interceptions – featuring the pickpocketing of Kolarov – Sissoko charged 50 yards only to spare Joe Hart by shooting too early.
(9) MPs on the all-parliamentary party group on Gypsies, Travellers and Roma sounded the alarm about provocative language as a prominent Tory council leader suggested some Roma are planning to come to the UK to "pickpocket and aggressively beg" following the end of labour market controls on the two eastern European countries.
(10) Lee Cattermole dallied in possession and was pickpocketed by Álvaro Negredo.
(11) Romanians and Bulgarians, on the other hand, are today's "wretched of the earth", described by Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun as variably corrupt, as rapists and as pickpockets.
(12) Police in Hamburg said some aspects of the attackers’ methods were akin to those of skilled pickpockets operating in the city.
(13) The main true opposition political parties stood united behind the young people who instigated and led the revolution, and petty crimes such as harassment and pickpocketing – which had been at epidemic levels in Cairo – all but disappeared throughout the revolution.
(14) An initial internal police report released to the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger said that among an estimated 100 men questioned by police over their behaviour during the evening there were not only trickster pickpockets typical to the area – so-called ‘Äntanzer’ or ‘waltzers’ – who dance with their victims, unbalance them and use the opportunity to rob them, but also newly arrived refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
(15) A cold-hearted miser bullied by ghosts into gaining a conscience has triumphed over a festering, jilted bride and an alcoholic, nihilistic barrister – not to mention the odd pickpocket and escaped convict – to be named the most popular Charles Dickens character.
(16) "The teachers support us," they continue, speaking into a bicycle-powered public address system, which just about rises above an announcement to watch out for pickpockets.
(17) We even get pickpockets in here, just like at a street market," he added.
(18) "But I think the fear that everybody faces is those that come to Britain and either fail to find jobs and therefore fall back on our welfare system, or those who deliberately come here to pickpocket and aggressively beg.
(19) However, the annual crime figures show a 2% rise in some types of property crime, especially in unattended personal property, such as garden sheds, pickpocketing and thefts of commercial materials, particularly metal.
(20) Bresson in films like Pickpocket or A Man Escaped watches souls striving for redemption; Hitchcock in Psycho or Vertigo explores the incurably neurotic mind.