View synonyms for pick apart

pick apart

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, pick holes in or pick to pieces . Find flaws in something by close examination, criticize sharply, as in The lawyer picked apart the testimony , or He found it easy to pick holes in their argument , or The new editor picked her manuscript to pieces . These expressions use pick in the sense of “pierce” or “poke,” a usage dating from the 1300s; pick holes in dates from the mid-1600s, pick to pieces from the mid-1800s.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

pickaninny pick a quarrel

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