Chapter Pianograph to Picket of P by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

9. To trim. [Obs.] Chaucer.

To pick at, to tease or vex by pertinacious annoyance. — To pick a bone with. See under Bone. — To pick a thank, to curry favor. [Obs.] Robynson — To pick off. (a) To pluck; to remove by picking. (b) To shoot or bring down, one by one; as, sharpshooters pick off the enemy. — To pick out. (a) To mark out; to variegate; as, to pick out any dark stuff with lines or spots of bright colors. (b) To select from a number or quantity. — To pick to pieces, to pull apart piece by piece; hence [Colloq.], to analyze; esp., to criticize in detail. — To pick a quarrel, to give occasion of quarrel intentionally. — To pick up. (a) To take up, as with the fingers. (b) To get by repeated efforts; to gather here and there; as, to pick up a livelihood; to pick up news.

Pick
(Pick) v. i.

1. To eat slowly, sparingly, or by morsels; to nibble.

Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore?

Dryden.

2. To do anything nicely or carefully, or by attending to small things; to select something with care.

3. To steal; to pilfer. "To keep my hands from picking and stealing." Book of Com. Prayer.

To pick up, to improve by degrees; as, he is picking up in health or business. [Colloq. U.S.]

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.

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 by quarrymen, roadmakers, etc.; also, a pointed hammer used for dressing millstones.

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.

4. Choice; right of selection; as, to have one's pick.

France and Russia have the pick of our stables.

Ld. Lytton.

5. That which would be picked or chosen first; the best; as, the pick of the flock.

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.

7. (Painting) That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture.

8. (Weawing) 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.

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.

Pickaback
(Pick"a*back`) adv. On the back or shoulders; as, to ride pickback. [Written also pickapack, pickback, and pickpack.]

A woman stooping to take a child pickaback.

R,Jefferies.