pickle
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: arts
ball-games
baseball
computing
crafts
engineering
games
hobbies
lifestyle
mathematics
metallurgy
metalworking
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
sports
Etymology: From Middle English pikel (“spicy sauce served with meat or fish”), borrowed from Middle Dutch, Middle Low German pekel (“brine”). Cognate with Scots pikkill (“salt liquor, brine”), Saterland Frisian Piekele (“pickle, brine”), Dutch pekel (“pickle, brine”), Low German pekel, peckel, pickel, bickel (“pickle, brine”), German Pökel (“pickle, brine”), Icelandic pækill (“brine”).
Inflected forms:
form: pickles
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: pickel
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
rare
form: pickles
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: pickling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: pickled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: pickled
pos: verb
tags: past
form: pickel
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
rare
Senses:
gloss: A cucumber preserved in a solution, usually a brine or a vinegar syrup.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
Canada
US
countable
uncountable
examples: A pickle goes well with a hamburger.
gloss: Any vegetable preserved in vinegar and consumed as relish.
pos: noun
tags: countable
in-plural
often
uncountable
gloss: A sweet, vinegary pickled chutney popular in Britain.
pos: noun
tags: UK
countable
uncountable
gloss: The brine used for preserving food.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: This tub is filled with the pickle that we will put the small cucumbers into.
gloss: A difficult situation; peril.
pos: noun
tags: countable
informal
uncountable
examples: The climber found himself in a pickle when one of the rocks broke off.
I beg you, Miss Jones, to realize the pickle you're in.
gloss: A mildly mischievous loved one.
pos: noun
tags: countable
endearing
uncountable
examples: by degrees my little pickle (who, as I told you at the beginning of the story, was the most troublesome child I ever came across) turned into a very well-behaved young gentleman.
... If you could get my little pickle to learn his multiplication table before you leave us, you shall have that musical box to take home with you.
'And now,' she said, 'what about that kiss my little pickle was going to give his old Auntie?'
gloss: A rundown.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Jones was caught in a pickle between second and third.
gloss: A children’s game with three participants that emulates a baseball rundown
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: The boys played pickle in the front yard for an hour.
gloss: A penis.
pos: noun
tags: countable
slang
uncountable
gloss: A pipe for smoking methamphetamine.
pos: noun
tags: countable
slang
uncountable
examples: Load some shards in that pickle.
gloss: A bath of dilute sulphuric or nitric acid, etc., to remove burnt sand, scale, rust, etc., from the surface of castings, or other articles of metal, or to brighten them or improve their colour.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: In an optical landing system, the hand-held controller connected to the lens, or apparatus on which the lights are mounted.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: To preserve food (or sometimes other things) in a salt, sugar or vinegar solution.
pos: verb
tags: ergative
transitive
examples: We pickled the remainder of the crop.
These cucumbers pickle very well.
gloss: To remove high-temperature scale and oxidation from metal with heated (often sulphuric) industrial acid.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The crew will pickle the fittings in the morning.
gloss: To serialize.
pos: verb
examples: You can now restore the pickled data. If you like, close your Python interpreter and open a new instance, to convince yourself […]
To illustrate how this would work in practice, consider a field designed to store and retrieve a pickled copy of any arbitrary Python object.
gloss: To pour brine over a person after flogging them, as a method of punishment.
pos: verb
tags: historical
examples: On Wednesday 26 May, […] I had [an enslaved man] flogged and pickled and then made Hector shit in his mouth. […] In July, […] Gave [another enslaved man] a moderate whipping, pickled him well, made Hector shit in his mouth, […]
Naval seamen could also be keel-hauled, ducked, pickled, and flogged around the fleet.
[elsewhere, page 93, the book explains:] A pickled man had his flogged back washed with vinegar.
Related words: piccalilli
Derived words: bread-and-butter pickle
Christmas pickle
Dickel pickle
dill pickle
frickle
gammon and pickles
hunger is the best pickle
in a pickle
Koolickle
kosher pickle
military pickle
Persian pickle
pickleable
pickleback
pickleball
pickle boat
pickle fork
pickle fruit
picklehead
pickle-herring
pickle juice
pickleless
picklelike
pickleman
pickle park
pickle plant
pickler
picklerita
picklery
picklesome
pickle switch
pickletini
pickle up one's ass
pickleweed
pickleworm
pickly
put a rod in pickle
quickle
rod in pickle
sea pickle
tickle someone's pickle
unpickle
whatever tickles your pickle
white pickle
pickle up
pickled
pickling
repickle
Translations:
lang: Estonian
word: koerakont
lang: Finnish
word: polttopallo
lang: German
word: Neckball