picking
Americannoun
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pickings
plural
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the act of a person or thing that picks.
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something that is or may be picked or picked up.
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the amount picked.
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pickings,
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scraps or gleanings.
the pickings of a feast.
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profits or gains; spoils.
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Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of picking
before 900; Middle English; Old English picung (once) a mark made by picking; see pick 1, -ing 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Systematic funds follow trends in the market, picking up on signals sent by price action — either up or down — that their models and trading algorithms sniff out.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 7, 2026
Callison said that Sunrise is poised to move quickly with new projects because it kept its development team together during the pandemic and picking up sites abandoned by other developers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
Viv Groskop, a stand-up comedian, writer and public speaking coach advises picking a word that encapsulates what you want your speech to convey.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
Still, Thybulle said he’s picking up new skills.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
“Aunt Maud’s,” I said, and Lloyd agreed, to keep Charlie from picking us clean.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
For royal watchers, Trooping the Colour is rich pickings.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
We are small fry by most standards, but I can imagine state lawmakers looking at us as easy pickings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
But for 2½ hours she got the error message and could not access the pool of tickets until 12:30 p.m., by which time, she said, “the pickings were slim.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2026
Squirrels should be smart enough to take the easy pickings over the puzzle box.
From Slate ● Jan. 25, 2026
More attention to her looks than these pullings of hairs and pickings at spots would have caused gossip among the villagers.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
