pick up
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: picks up
form: picking up
form: picked up
form: picked up
Senses: examples: text: When you pick up the bag, make sure to support the bottom.
text: Evidently some, or all, of the boars immolated themselves, for the train crew are reported to have picked up three dead boars and continued to Sézanne, the next stop, where they gave them to the local hospital cooks.
ref: 1957 December 24, “Wild Boars Charge French Train”, in Railway Magazine, page 840:
antonyms: put down
glosses: To lift; to grasp and raise.
examples: text: Can you pick up a pint of milk on your way home?
text: "I don't want to spoil any comparison you are going to make," said Jim, "but I was at Winchester and New College." ¶ "That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. Then I ran away and sold papers in the streets, and anything else that I could pick up a few coppers by—except steal.[…]"
ref: 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter II, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC:
antonyms: drop off
glosses: To collect an object, especially in passing.
examples: text: I picked up a cold on my trip last week.
text: Cars often pick up bits of road tar and asphalt, dried bugs, tree sap, or other debris that’s hard to remove with regular car wash soap.
ref: 2020 April 16, Thom Dunn, Rik Paul, “How to Wash and Detail a Car the Right Way”, in The New York Times—Wirecutter:
text: We are constantly being exposed to fungi, whether by picking up spores on our skin or eating food on which fungi are hitchhiking. Most of them won’t take up residence in our bodies.
ref: 2022 September 29, Carl Zimmer, “A New Approach to Spotting Tumors: Look for Their Microbes”, in The New York Times:
glosses: To acquire (something) accidentally; to catch or contract (a disease).
examples: text: Aren't you going to pick up after yourself?
text: The floor was strewn with bright snips of origami paper, a crumpled drawing, and one dirty sock, which Amy now shoved under the bed with her foot. ¶ "You're lucky," said Marla. "My mother makes me pick up my room every single day."
ref: 1967, Beverly Cleary, Mitch and Amy, HarperCollins, published 2009, →ISBN, page 28:
antonyms: mess up
glosses: To clean up; to return to an organized state.
examples: text: I'll pick you up outside the library.
text: After picking up a few passengers (most likely heading into Exeter for shopping) and setting a few off (for a day at the beach), we get the 'right away' and continue along the sea wall with its iconic sandstone cliffs on the left.
ref: 2023 August 23, Pip Dunn, “The last bastion of the HST 'Castles'”, in RAIL, number 990, page 49:
antonyms: drop off
glosses: To collect a passenger.
examples: text: The cops have picked up the man they were looking for.
glosses: To collect and detain (a suspect).
examples: text: The story does not seem to have been widely picked up.
text: News of this notice from the university was picked up by local media and had the effect of raising the ire of some citizens who saw this as an attack on ‘Chinese heritage’[.]
ref: 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 3:
topics: media
glosses: To obtain and publish a story, news item, etc.
examples: text: Prices seem to be picking up again.
text: I was in bed sick this morning, but I'm picking up now.
glosses: To improve, increase, or speed up.
examples: text: Let's pick up where we left off yesterday.
text: The plot picks up where the last film left off. The High Table, the organisation that controls crime around the world, has a multi-million-dollar contract out on Wick, who killed a High Table member.
ref: 2023 March 14, Caryn James, “John Wick: Chapter 4: 'Soars above most action films'”, in BBC:
text: Picking up eight years after The Dark Knight left off, the film finds Gotham enjoying a tenuous peace based on Harvey Dent’s moral ideals rather than the ugly truth of his demise.
ref: 2012 July 18, Scott Tobias, AV Club, The Dark Knight Rises:
glosses: To restart or resume.
examples: text: Miller brought his car from the underground garage and threaded a way through London's traffic to pick up the A5.
ref: 1957, Sydney J. Bounds, The Robot Brains, London: Digit Books, page 45:
glosses: To reach and continue along (a road).
examples: text: It looks complicated, but you'll soon pick it up.
synonyms: learn
glosses: To learn, to grasp; to begin to understand; to realize.
examples: text: With the new antenna, I can pick up stations all the way from Omaha.
glosses: To receive (a radio signal or the like).
examples: text: Did you pick up his nervousness?
glosses: To notice, detect or discern; to pick up on.
examples: text: She's always picking me up on my grammar.
glosses: To point out the behaviour, habits, or actions of (a person) in a critical manner; used with on.
examples: text: He was in the fabric store not to buy fabric but to pick up women.
text: Xavier—first seen as an adult in First Class trying to pick up a woman in a bar—is impotent, at least metaphorically, and will eventually see all of his luxuriant hair fall out.
ref: 2016 May 23, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “Apocalypse pits the strengths of the X-Men series against the weaknesses”, in The Onion AV Club:
synonyms: word: blag
word: hit on
word: rizz up
word: take up
glosses: To meet and seduce somebody for romantic purposes, especially in a social situation.
examples: text: I'm calling him, but he just isn't picking up!
synonyms: pick up the phone
glosses: To answer a telephone.
examples: text: I've tried his home number a couple times, but it isn't picking up.
glosses: To receive calls; to function correctly.
raw_tags: of a phone
examples: text: The company will pick up lunch with customers for sales calls.
glosses: To pay for.
examples: text: […]they pick me up when I'm feeling blue
ref: 1974, Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Sweet Home Alabama”:
glosses: To reduce the despondency of.
examples: text: Bolton were then just inches from taking the lead, but the dangerous-looking Taylor drilled just wide after picking up a loose ball following Jose Bosingwa's poor attempted clearance.
ref: 2010 December 29, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1-0 Bolton”, in BBC:
glosses: To take control (physically) of something.
examples: text: And soon after, no-one picked up Shotton who was free to power a 12-yard header over from another Pennant corner, before Pennant sent a free kick straight at Cardiff keeper Tom Heaton.
ref: 2011 January 18, David Dulin, “Cardiff 0-2 Stoke”, in BBC:
topics: ball-games
games
hobbies
lifestyle
soccer
sports
glosses: To mark, to defend against an opposition player by following them closely.
examples: text: And the home side survived without any late scares to pick up the first win of their Group F campaign.
ref: 2011 September 28, Tom Rostance, “Arsenal 2-1 Olympiakos”, in BBC Sport:
glosses: To record; to notch up.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To behave in a manner that results in a foul.
examples: text: […] there are now 98 officers of that rank who have been passed over one or more times, most of whom have little prospect of being picked up by future selection boards but will await only the completion of 21 years' service before going on the retired list.
ref: 1937, United States. Congress. Senate, Hearings, volume 2, page 141:
text: The list is about the same as when each class was commissioned, except for a small percentage who were passed over once or twice and then picked up.
ref: 1938, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Naval Affairs, Hearings on H.R. 9997 to Regulate the Distribution, Promotion, and Retirement of Officers of the Line of the Navy and for Other Purposes, page 3239:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: To promote somebody who was previously passed over.
Derived terms: picker-upper
pick it up
pick-me-up
pick oneself up off the floor
pickupable
pick-up game
pick-up joint
pick up line
pick up on
pick up one's crumbs
pick up one's marbles and go home
pickup
pick-up
pick up speed
pick up steam
pick-up sticks
pick up stitches
pick up stompies
pick up the ball and run with it
pick up the mantle
pick up the pace
pick up the phone
pick up the pieces
pick up the slack
pick up the tab
pick up the threads
pick up the threads of
pick up what someone is laying down
pick up what someone is putting down