Pick

How to spell pick

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pick

What does pick mean?

1. verbTo choose or select one thing or person from a number of options.
2. verbTo remove fruit, flowers, or similar by hand from where they grow.
3. nounA heavy hand tool with a pointed metal head used for breaking up hard ground or rock.
4. nounA person or thing that has been chosen, or the act of choosing.

Pick in a sentence

• verb

  Each member can pick one charity to support this year.

• verb

  The family drove out to the farm to pick apples in autumn.

• noun

  The labourer swung the pick into the frozen soil.

• noun

  The red coat was her first pick from the whole collection.

• verb

  The manager let the team pick its own deadline for the project.

• verb

  Volunteers help pick ripe strawberries before the morning heat.

Where does pick come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Pick is an old, plain word whose roots tangle together in several Germanic and Romance threads, which is why its exact ancestry is uncertain. The Middle English verb 'picken' or 'piken' meant 'to pierce, to peck, or to dig at with a pointed object', and it sits alongside Old English 'pician' ('to prick') and parallel forms in Old Norse and Dutch. There was almost certainly cross-influence from Old French 'piquer', meaning 'to prick or sting', a word that also gave English 'pike' and 'piquant'. From the literal idea of jabbing at something with a point came the sense of plucking individual items out, and from there the modern figurative meaning of selecting one thing from many. The same core notion of a sharp point also produced the noun 'pick', the heavy digging tool, so the spade-and-the-choice meanings really do share one ancestor.

How the word is built

• pick (single root verb/noun of obscure origin; no prefix or suffix)

Words that sound like pick

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• pic: An informal word for a picture, especially a photograph or image.