picking

Pluralpickings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of pick.

   He stood in the orchard, picking ripe pears one by one.

   Picking carefully through the rubble, the rescuers searched for survivors.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. With a form of be it builds the progressive (she was picking pears), and on its own it heads a phrase that names the activity (picking fruit is slow work). It carries the whole range of pick, from plucking and harvesting to choosing, and the same spelling also serves as a noun, as in a fruit-gathering.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of making a choice; the selecting of one thing from among others.

   The committee's picking of a finalist sparked weeks of debate.

   His picking of the winning horse was sheer luck.

   Similarselection, choice

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An item that has been picked out or removed from something larger.

   The finest picking from the vineyard was set aside for the owner.

   He inspected every picking before it was packed for shipping.

4. 4
   noun

   Income or other gains, especially when obtained through dishonest or objectionable means.

   The smugglers counted their pickings by candlelight in the back room.

   Officials grew fat on the easy pickings of an unregulated port.

   Similarspoils, takings, loot, profits, gains

   Note

   Plural as a rule, and usually paired with an adjective that sizes up the haul: easy pickings for gains that take little effort or risk, rich pickings for a large one. The word keeps a whiff of the unearned. In Anthony Hope's The Secret of the Tower (1919), a man likes the pickings his job brings him better than the job itself. Unlike the leftover scraps, these pickings are the prize, not the remainder.

5. 5
   noun

   The items left behind after others have taken the best; scraps, as of food.

   After the auction's main lots sold, dealers fought over the meager pickings.

   The late shoppers found slim pickings on the bare market shelves.

   Similarleftovers, scraps, remnants

   Note

   Almost always plural, and almost always about what is left once others have had their turn. Its natural partners are adjectives of scarcity, as in slim pickings or meager pickings, for a disappointing remainder. F. Marion Crawford's Via Crucis (1899) bends it ironically: stray dogs and cats live on the "choice pickings" of a city's garbage, the best of what was already thrown away.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A gathering at which people come together to harvest fruit.

   The orchard's annual picking drew hundreds of families each fall.

   Volunteers arrived at dawn for the village picking.

   Similarharvest

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The final stage of finishing woven fabric, in which burs and other bits are removed from the surface.

   Once the loom's work was done, the fabric passed to the picking for a final cleaning.

   The mill's picking removed the burs that weaving had trapped in the cloth.

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The removal of small defects from electrotype printing plates.

   The platemaker gave the electrotype a final picking before the run.

   Any spot missed in the picking would mar every printed page.

9. 9
   noununcountable

   The dressing of a stone surface by dabbing it with a tool, a technique used in stoneworking.

   The wall's even picking gave the stone a pitted, textured face.

   He learned picking from an old stonemason in the village.

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