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pick

Pronunciation: /pɪk/

The English word “pick” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A tool used for digging; a pickaxe.
  2. An anchor.
  3. A pointed hammer used for dressing millstones.
  4. A tool for unlocking a lock without the original key; a lock pick, picklock.
  5. A comb with long widely spaced teeth, for use with tightly curled hair.
  6. A tool used for strumming the strings of a guitar; a plectrum.
  7. A pike or spike; the sharp point fixed in the center of a buckler.
  8. A choice; ability to choose.
  9. That which would be picked or chosen first; the best.
  10. Pasture; feed, for animals.
  11. A screen.
  12. An offensive tactic in which a player stands so as to block a defender from reaching a teammate.
  13. An interception.
  14. A good defensive play by an infielder.
  15. A pickoff.
  16. 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.
  17. That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture.
  18. 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.

verb

  1. To grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails.
  2. To harvest a fruit or vegetable for consumption by removing it from the plant to which it is attached; to harvest an entire plant by removing it from the ground.

Etymology

From Middle English piken, picken, pikken, from Old English *piccian, *pīcian (attested in pīcung (“a pricking”)), and pīcan, pȳcan (“to pick, prick, pluck”), both from Proto-West Germanic *pikkōn, from Proto-Germanic *pikkōną (“to pick, peck, prick, knock”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew-, *bu- (“to make a dull, hollow sound”). Doublet of pitch and peck. Cognate with Dutch pikken (“to pick”),…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.