- Pick
- Pick Pick, n. [F. pic a pickax, a pick. See {Pick}, and cf.
{Pike}.]
1. A sharp-pointed tool for picking; -- often used in
composition; as, a toothpick; a picklock.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Mining & Mech.) A heavy iron tool, curved and sometimes pointed at both ends, wielded by means of a wooden handle inserted in the middle, -- used for digging ino the ground by quarrymen, roadmakers, etc.; also, a pointed hammer used for dressing millstones. [1913 Webster]
3. A pike or spike; the sharp point fixed in the center of a buckler. [Obs.] ``Take down my buckler . . . and grind the pick on 't.'' --Beau. & Fl. [1913 Webster]
4. Choice; right of selection; as, to have one's pick; in cat breeding, the owner of a stud gets the pick of the litter. [1913 Webster +PJC]
France and Russia have the pick of our stables. --Ld. Lytton. [1913 Webster]
5. Hence: That which would be picked or chosen first; the best; as, the pick of the flock. [1913 Webster]
6. (Print.) 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. --MacKellar. [1913 Webster]
7. (Painting) That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture. [1913 Webster]
8. (Weaving) 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. [1913 Webster]
{Pick dressing} (Arch.), in cut stonework, a facing made by a pointed tool, leaving the surface in little pits or depressions.
{Pick hammer}, a pick with one end sharp and the other blunt, used by miners. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.