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Pick   Listen
verb
Pick  v. i.  
1.
To eat slowly, sparingly, or by morsels; to nibble. "Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore?"
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."
To pick up, to improve by degrees; as, he is picking up in health or business. (Colloq. U.S.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pick" Quotes from Famous Books



... never rested until he had found it out. So, one day, hidden close by, he saw King Karan enter the faqîr's house and pop into the boiling oil. He saw him frizzle and sizzle, he saw him come out crisp and brown, he saw the hungry and holy faqîr pick the bones, and, finally, he saw King Karan, fat and jolly as ever, go down the mountain side with his hundredweight ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... well they did not put off their gathering any longer, for some of the flowers were beginning to dry up already: that cousins had never tasted cowslip-tea;—(was not this very odd?)—that cousin Hester would not help to pick the flowers for drying,—she thought it such a pity to pull the blossom out of the calyx: that Sophia would not help either, because it was warm: that cousin Margaret had gathered a great many, but she had been ever so long watching a spider's nest,—a nasty large spider's ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... that of the shining yellow gold. A description of iron mines will easily follow, and the children will delight to hear of the great shafts sunk deep in the earth, of the baskets in which the miners travel up and down, of the darkness underground where they toil all day with pick and shovel, of the safety lamps they carry in their caps, of the mules that drag the loads of iron ore to and fro, and—startling fact, at which round eyes are invariably opened—that some of these mules have their stables ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... mere man of action. It is difficult to understand when it was that he had time to pick up his knowledge of general literature; or how he made room for it in a mind so crammed with facts and statistics relating to questions of the day that when Wilberforce was at a loss for a piece of information he used to say, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... smoke, and brag and unshorn hair. Jess learned to drink a cocktail in order to get the cherry. At home she smoked a cigarette after dinner. She learned to pronounce Chianti, and leave her olive stones for the waiter to pick up. Once she essayed to say la, la, la! in a crowd but got only as far as the second one. They met one or two couples while dining out and became friendly with them. The sideboard was stocked with Scotch and rye and a liqueur. They ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... equipments, Ben-Hur stepped into the street so close to the line of march as to bring every one of the company under view while passing. The torches and the lanterns were being borne by servants, each of whom was armed with a bludgeon or a sharpened stave. Their present duty seemed to be to pick out the smoothest paths among the rocks in the street for certain dignitaries among them—elders and priests; rabbis with long beards, heavy brows, and beaked noses; men of the class potential in the councils of Caiaphas and Hannas. Where could they be ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... see it. Nothing's easier than to pick up a smattering—just enough to tell one cup from another, and to seem very wise about it. I didn't ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... happy. The small boy had small duties. He must pick up chips, feed the hens, hunt eggs, sprout potatoes, and weed the garden. But he had fun the year round, varying with the seasons, but culminating with the winter, when severity was unheeded in the joy of coasting, ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... you do, my little fellow? What is your name? Ain't you afraid of being in the woods by yourself?' On satisfying his inquiries, I invited the traveler to partake of my duck, which he did, without leaving me a bone to pick, his appetite was so keen, though he should have been welcome to all the game I could have killed, when I afterward became acquainted with his noble and gallant soul." After satisfying his questions, he inquired of the stranger his own name and business in this ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... however. They had planned for a thrilling result; and there was thrill enough while it lasted. In the first place, the stone nearly caught Will Bowen when it started. John Briggs had just that moment quit digging and handed Will the pick. Will was about to step into the excavation when Sam Clemens, who was already there, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... dimly that Una meant ME. But I didn't exactly recollect it had been my name before, though I learned in due time afterwards that I'd always been called so. However, just at first, I picked up the word as a child might pick it up; and when, some months later, I began to talk easily, I spoke of myself always in the third person as Una. I can remember with a smile now how I went one day to Aunt Emma—I, a great girl of eighteen—and ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... consolation when any transient cloud obscured the sunny brightness of her childhood. From twelve to fourteen, I told her stories; astonished her with narratives of my own exploits at Eton, and caused her serene blue eyes to open in admiration at the marvels of London. At fourteen, I began to pick up her pocket-handkerchief, hunt for her thimble, accompany her in duets, and to read poetry to her, as she occupied herself with the little lady-like employments of the needle. About the age of seventeen I began to compare cousin Anna, as I was ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... fashions and personal allusions tended to thwart his genius. When he introduces a French song in his plays this does not imply any intimate acquaintance with the lyrical poetry of France but rather deference to the taste of the Court. He would pick up words of foreign languages with the same quickness with which he initiated himself into the way of witch or pilot, fishwife or doctor, but we have an excellent proof that his knowledge of neither French nor Italian was profound. We know how consistently ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... do not think that they are worlds, But apples on a tree; The angels pick them whenever they like, But it is not so with me. I wish I was a little angel-child To gather stars for ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... upper portion of the ice had been slightly softened, so that this last work did not entail much labour for pick-axe or spade. The course ran obliquely round the west side of the berg, so that the incline should not be too great at any point. With cables properly fixed, the launch, it seemed, might be effected without any mishap. I rather feared lest the melting of the ice should make ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... born in Harvie, but left it at such an early age that he could only recall thatched houses with nets drying on the roofs, and a sandy shore in which coarse grass grew. In the picture he could not pick out the house of his birth, though he might have been able to go to it had he ever returned to the village. Soon he learned that his mother did not care to speak of Harvie, and perhaps he thought that she had forgotten it too, all save one scene ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... the moon had not gone down, and if the stars were out, that we might pick out the honest ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... council of war Longstreet begged Lee to withdraw from Gettysburg and pick more favorable ground. Reinforced by the arrival of Pickett's division of fifteen thousand fresh men and Stuart's Cavalry, he decided to ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... mint and coined into money to pay his army. In the cellar they found chests filled with ducats. The bottom fell out of one as they carried it up and the gold rolled out on the pavement. The soldiers swarmed to pick it up, but a good many coins stuck to their pockets. The King saw it and laughed: "Since you have them, boys, keep them." The dead were still lying in the castle yard after the siege, a number of monks among them. The color of some of them seemed high for corpses. "Arise from the dead," ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... the kitchen and found an apron and cap. These half-crowns were fine things to pick up occasionally, for it was only upon occasions that she worked at the ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... of horizontally after the older fashion. Skippers and crews are well paid for the voyage, which lasts from a year to fifteen months. The floating warehouses anchor off the coast where it lacks factories, and pick up the waifs and strays of cam-wood, palm-oil, and kernels, the peculiar export of the Gold Coast: at times a tusk or a little gold-dust finds its way on board. The trader must be careful in buying the latter. Not only ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... sick to carry you any farther. They jumped us at San Lorenzo, and when we found we couldn't get to Amapala from here, we decided to scatter, and let each man take care of himself. Von Ritter and I, and two of the boys, are taking Laguerre with us. He is still alive, but very bad. We hope to pick up a fishing-boat outside of town, and make for the Raleigh. We tried to carry you, too, but it wasn't possible. We had to desert one of you, so we stuck by the old man. We hid your revolver and money- ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... the autumn is the gathering of the ripe corn. A band of men go ahead and pull the ears from the stalks and throw them at intervals of thirty yards into loose piles and another band following behind them at a distance pick the ears up and pitch them into the ox-carts, which, when fully loaded, return to the granary, around which the corn is soon massed in long and high rows. When the whole crop has been got in, a moonlight night is selected for stripping off the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... are the men who travel with the logs from the beginning of their journey till they are surrendered to the saw-mills. Each wears shoes the soles of which are thickly studded with iron brads an inch long; and each carries a long pole called a "pick-pole," which has a strong sharp-pointed iron spike in the end. This they drive into the wood, and it supports and steadies them as they spring from ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... receiving the sacrament, before the consecrated bread and wine,—purposely placed in our sight in the act of kneeling as signs standing in Christ's stead, before which we, the receivers, are to exhibit outwardly religious adoration,—be formally idolatry or not? No man can pick a quarrel at the stating of the question thus; for, 1. We dispute only about kneeling at the instant of receiving the sacramental elements, as all know. 2. No man denies inward adoration in the act of receiving, for in our minds we then adore ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... properly looked after. Some attempt is made to see that tools and implements are kept in order. If the tenant falls behind in his work and allows his crop to be overrun with grass or is unable to pick the cotton as it opens, the owner hires help, if possible, and charges the cost against the tenant. In other words, the owner attempts to apply to agriculture some of the principles of industrial organization. The success of such attempts varies. The ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... up the best they can find, or ought to do so at least, or else they are very much to blame; for the Employment they are put to being of so great use to the Publick, and the Voyage or Flight so exceeding high, it would be very ill done if, when the King sends his Letters about the Nation, to pick him up the best Feathers they can lay their Hands on, they should send weak, decay'd, or half-grown Feathers, and yet sometimes it happens so; and once there was such rotten Feathers collected, whether it was a bad Year for Feathers, or whether the People that gather'd them ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... (if such a term could be applied to Mr. Lincoln) one who did not know him might have called him indolent. He would pick up a book and run rapidly over the pages, pausing here and there. At the end of an hour—never, as I remember, more than two or three hours—he would close the book, stretch himself out on the office lounge, and with ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... stood up, half-dead from exhaustion, against the lowering skies he saw the vultures ready to pick the bones that Glory had provided in this phase of the terrifying story of ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... unobtrusively about the group while some almost automatic part of his mind began to pick up the thread of Dr. Al's discourse. After a dozen or so sentences, he realized that the evening's theme was the relationship between subjective and objective reality, as understood in the light of Total Insight. It was a well-worn ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz

... he hath goeth in velvet and ouches," [jewellery] said the Archbishop, with his cold, sarcastic smile. "Well—if the Duke's Grace would fain pick up ducats even in the mire, mayhap he shall find them as plenty in England as otherwhere. Your Highness can heald [pour forth] gold with any Prince in Italy. And when the lady is hither, 'twere easy to bid an hunting party, ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... would take it," replied Robin with much courtesy, and in a well-feigned foreign accent; "for though I am a poor wanderer, one of another country, trying to pick up a little by my skill in music, and from those charitable Christians who pity my deformity, yet I love the very look of a sailor so much, that I would give even my gittern to a ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... from the tree to the turf. The small man stooped to pick them up, and when he looked up again the green cage of the tree was emptied ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... I had all my life looked with a reverence that prepared me for knowing the great father, weeping like a bitterly repentant and self-abhorrent child. It seemed sacrilege to be present. I felt as if my eyes, only for seeing him thus, deserved the ravens to pick them out. ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... Tanberry, "you make me want to be a man! I'd pick you up and run to the North Pole, where no one could ever follow. And I can tell you that it hurts not to throw my arms round you and kiss you; but you're so exquisite I ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... she comes but as a village maid. On Sunday, when it is not etiquette for our fashionables to drive, but only to walk along the cliffs, they seem to wear a more innocent and wholesome aspect in that novel position; I have seen a fine lady pause under such circumstances and pick a wild-flower; she knew how to do it. A footpath has its own character, while that of the high-road is imposed upon it by those who dwell beside it or pass over it; indeed, roads become picturesque only when they ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... at an end, but I was as yet the only boarder. There were, however, some twenty or thirty youths from the neighbourhood, who were day scholars at the doctor's school. Among these the doctor had his pick in the flogging way, but he never allowed them to know anything of our other proceedings, or to imagine that the birching which took place was otherwise than as a punishment for faults or inattention. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... genius, and popularity; or rather, that the constant favour of the multitude is a thing of such a nature that its price is beyond its worth in the eyes of really virtuous men, and that it is necessary to stoop too low to pick it up, and become too weak to retain it. Petion was only king of the people on condition of being complaisant to its excesses. His functions as mayor of Paris, in a time of trouble, placed him constantly between the king, the Assembly, and the revolts. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... below the surface I found that my shovel struck something hard, and, clearing away the gravel from this for two or three square feet, I looked down upon a solid mass of ice. It was dirty and begrimed, but it was truly ice. With my pick I detached some large pieces of it. These, with some discomfort, I carried out into the dell where Susan might come with her basket ...
— My Terminal Moraine - 1892 • Frank E. Stockton

... by those of the after-pivot gun, and offers a reward for its silence. Soon his battery is turned upon the particular offending gun with endeavor to compel its abandonment; in vain, for its work of destruction goes on. Captain Semmes places sharp-shooters in the quarter boats to pick off the officers; in vain, for none are injured. He views the surrounding devastation—a sinking ship, rudder and propeller disabled, a large portion of the crew killed or wounded, while his adversary is apparently but ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne

... four movable little horns; so, when it wants to feed, it hides under leaves all of its body except these little horns which, as they move, seem to the birds to be some small worms at play. Then they immediately swoop down to pick them and the Cerastes suddenly twines round them and ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... don't know. Might as well get something good while we're buying. And while you're at it, pick out some of those curtains that have flowers and birds on 'em and a pretty rug or two. I'll have Fletcher put down hard oak flooring; and I guess it won't make much more of a mess if we go ahead and connect up the house with the ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

... their swag on their backs, when the distance was not more than forty miles. 'You look so foolish getting out of one of them rattletrap coaches,' he said, 'and everybody axing whether you're going to pick for yourself or buy a share in a claim. I'm all for walking,—if it ain't beneath you.' They declared themselves quite ready to walk, and under Mick's guidance they went out and bought two large red blankets and two pannikins. Mick declared that if they went without ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... trail, we separated the party in such a manner, that, if one lost the sledge-marks, others would pick them up. ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... word about to-day. We've had a splendid time. We were in Tiefengraben with the Warths where there are such a lot of wild strawberries. Robert picked all the best of them for me, to the great annoyance of Dora who had to pick them for herself. Really I would rather pick them for myself, but when some one else picks them for one for love (that's what Robert said) then one is quite glad to have them picked for one. Besides, I did pick some myself and gave most of them to ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... birds themselves, and the dead fish that have been dropped about the root, and suffered to remain there; for when the osprey lets fall his finny prey, which he often does, he never condescends to pick it up again, but ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... pitch dark night and make the bulls stand up, a feat that none of the white men would have attempted. I asked him how he did this and he told me the answer in three words, "I know them." He could go into a herd of cattle just let loose together and pick out their leader immediately, pick him out before the cattle themselves had! There was the origin of "Montes the Matador." He was named, of course, after the famous torero described by Gautier in his "Voyage en Espagne." When I was in Madrid ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... thing I really don't know. One of these times I shall die; there's not a shadow of doubt of that. The girls always have to carry me ashore, one holding me by the hair and one by the boots. Happily, I am so emancipated that my weight doesn't distress them. I pick up flesh in a day or two, and then my health is stupendous—as at present. You see ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... but liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... Dick, through his glasses, clearly saw the guns and columns of infantry, and also a body of Southern horse, drawn up on one flank of the hill. He fancied that the Invincibles were among them, but at the distance he could not pick ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... mother! stop crying! Don't you see I'm not dead?" She leaped about, catching up this wrap and that, shaking the dry snow out of them, and flinging them back into the cutter, while she laughed in the wild tumult of her spirits. Bartley helped her pick up the fragments of the wreck, and joined her in making fun of the adventure. The wind hustled them, but they were warm in defiance of it with their jollity and ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... asked again: "Are more of them present?" "Assuredly. Like devils they fly in swarms: like the Apostles they never travel less than two—one to preach you the relics and the other to pick the pocket in the tails of your coat. The man with the Oriental beard there looks respectable, does he not? ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... at Mason. "Just this, kid. Jardine and Bangs were on the teleceiver and the radar for fifteen minutes trying to pick up your beam. But there wasn't any, because ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell

... one of these choice Russian knives, picking away at clumps of frozen earth and picking up, as they fell out, particles of gold. Some were tiny; many were large as a pea, and one had been the size of a hickory nut. Now and again he straightened up to swing a pick into the frozen gravel which lay within the circle of light made by his pocket flashlight. After a few strokes he would throw down the pick and begin breaking up the lumps. Every now and again, he would lift the small sack ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... selection has been the most powerful means of changing the races of man. I can show that the different races have a widely different standard of beauty. Among savages the most powerful men will have the pick of the women, and they will generally leave the most descendants. I have collected a few notes on man, but I do not suppose that I shall ever use them. Do you intend to follow out your views, and if so, would you ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... o' stwone from the soft-bed of his father's quarries; and then 'a made a set o' stwonen chess-men, and so 'a got on. He's quite the gent in London, they tell me; and the wonder is that 'a cared to come back here and pick up little Avice Caro—nice maid as she is notwithstanding.... Hullo! there's to be a ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... himself into an armchair, and after finishing his laugh, exclaimed, "My dear Home, where did you pick up ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... curiosity dealer; "the cheap watch has driven the hour-glass out of the commercial market, and we rarely pick up a thing like that nowadays." He took the hour-glass from the shelf in the window, reversed it, and placed it on a table. The ruddy sand began to pour through into the lower receptacle in a thin, constant stream, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... where the establishment of priests was entirely supported by them. K[a]li (or Bhav[a]n[i]) herself directed that victims should be strangled, not bled (so the Thug legend). Their symbol was a pick, emblem of the goddess, unto whom a religious ceremony was performed before and after the murder was committed. Local small bankers often ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... of silk caddez[255] cotton produced by a trie (not growing in france, but just as the tries distilles the pick)[256] as of musk, wt the manner whow they ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... resembling a thick, round-pointed pick, 4-1/2 inches in length and 1 inch in diameter. It is perforated exactly as an iron pick would be for the insertion of a handle. The perforation has been produced by boring from opposite sides; ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes

... will always know where those keys are." Then he teetered it again and says, like he was lecturing on a platform: "This is an ideal problem for the metaphysical mind. Here, veritably, is life itself. We pick it up, we shake it, and we hear the tantalizing key to existence rattle plainly just inside. We know the key to be there; we hear it in every manifestation of life. Our problem is to think it out. It is simple, as my child has again and again pointed out. Sit there before your ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... minutes to bring the sailboat close enough to pick up the man. Tom threw him a rope and the stranger climbed aboard, making fast his rowboat to the stern of the sailing vessel. He was a peculiar, wild-looking fellow, with dark, shifting eyes and thick, curly hair that partly covered his ears. As be stepped into the sailboat his lips ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... little he could add to the stock, compared with the countless stores that lie about him, that he should stoop to pick up a name, or to polish an idle fancy? He walks abroad in the majesty of an universal understanding, eyeing the "rich strond," or golden sky above him, and "goes sounding on his way," in eloquent ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... to those I had been accustomed to in the Low Countries. Instead of affording a broad level way, they were full of ruts and inequalities. Sometimes we had to pass through a wide extent of mud, and at other times to pick our way amidst the boulders, rocks, and stones which lay before us. This prevented us from proceeding as rapidly as we should have desired. We could talk, however, as we rode along, and had ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... every feller's got to pick out his own road for himself!" said the fisher, pulling up a foot or two of his ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... wishing to prolong the conversation with one for whom he felt such an aversion. Quirk, however, was not to be put off in this manner; and drawing out his tooth-pick, he began using it among ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... exceedingly swift: and soft women who have been betrayed are rapid beyond measure. Mrs. Berry had not cogitated long ere she pronounced distinctly and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion is—married or not married, and wheresomever he pick her up—she's nothin' more nor less than a Bella Donna!" as which poisonous plant she forthwith registered the lady in the botanical note-book of her brain. It would have astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person so accurately hit off ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the psychology of imitation again. There is only one way to improve ourselves, and that is by some of us setting an example which the others may pick up and imitate till the new fashion spreads from east to west. Some of us are in more favorable positions than others to set new fashions. Some are much more striking personally and imitable, so to speak. But no living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody. Thackeray somewhere ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... lovely description of a sunset in the mountains. Pick out the details of the picture. "Rocks ... all crimson and purple with the sunset", "bright tongues of fiery cloud", "the river ... a waving column of pure gold", "the double arch of a broad purple rainbow", "flushing and fading alternately ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... it will be time to gather the fruit. Even now it is time to pick the black currants, all of which go to England to make the jams and jellies without which no ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich

... to pick up a battered hat as he moved toward the deputy. Now he showed the initials stamped on the sweat ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... field of vision. "Sunday evening, going by the jail, the setting sun kindled up the windows most cheerfully; as if there were a bright, comfortable light within its darksome stone wall." "I went yesterday with Monsieur S—— to pick raspberries. He fell through an old log-bridge, thrown over a hollow; looking back, only his head and shoulders appeared through the rotten logs and among the bushes.—A shower coming on, the rapid running ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.

... a live bird, only one stuffed. I will tell you a story of how I heard one once. It was about five-and-twenty years ago. I wanted some primroses for a nosegay. I used to pick the long feathery moss that grows in these woods and put the primroses among it. I ran across the road outside of our gates—for I could run in those days—and soon filled my basket with as many primroses as I wanted. As ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley

... informed me that he had been up on the topsail-yard, and had pretty well satisfied himself, both by the look of the craft and the course she was steering, that she was a slaver running in upon the coast to pick up a cargo. ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... The robbers pick up their idolized leader and pitch him into the tinsel torrent. This is also extremely satisfactory to the wide-awake young Arabs of the cock-loft. The bandits disperse, and Demas indulges in some fifty lines of rhymed reflections, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... the Terror sailed from England on June 19, 1845. The officers and sailors who manned their decks were the very pick of the Royal Navy and the merchant service, men inured to the perils of the northern ocean, and trained in the fine discipline of the service. Captain Crozier of the Terror was second in command. He had been with Ross in the Antarctic. Commander Fitzjames, Lieutenants Fairholme, ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock

... established a Sunday-school for the negroes and superintended it in person; he gave a tenth of his substance to the church; he "weighed his lightest utterances in the balances of the sanctuary;" he would not pick up an apple in a neighbor's orchard unless he had permission to take it; he never wrote or read letters on Sunday, or mailed one that must travel on that day to reach its destination; used neither tobacco, tea, nor coffee, and during the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... time after time the curious yellow faces would bend over the picture, the inscrutable slant eyes would study the face, sometimes silently, sometimes with a disheartening jabber of heathen tongues. But not one trace of Binhart could he pick up. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... account of the late actions around and on Spion Kop prevented me from describing its scenes and incidents. Events, like gentlemen at a levee, in these exciting days tread so closely on each other's heels that many pass unnoticed, and most can only claim the scantiest attention. But I will pick from the hurrying procession a few—distinguished for no other reason than that they have caught my eye—and from their quality the reader ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... 'Good old Carlo, you don't know anything of such struggles, old boy!' And we have fancied for a moment that Carlo had the best of it. It was a black and blasphemous thought, and He struck it away, as we should strike at a hawk that fluttered in front of our faces and threatened to pick at our eyes. But for one moment it hovered before Him, and He caught its ugly glance. It is a very ugly glance. Our capacity for great inward strife and for great inward suffering is the one proof we have that we were made in ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... or thanks to the frequent use of his staff, with which he beat the bushes continually, the chevalier had the good fortune not to encounter any serpents. Toward noon, worried and fatigued, he paused in order to pick some bananas, and climbed a tree in order to breakfast at his ease. To his joy and surprise he found that the leaves of this tree, rolled into cornucopias, held clear water, fresh and delicious to the taste; the chevalier drank several of those, put his remaining bananas ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... they should discover our preparation. We couldn't lay in a supply of food, for just at this time there was a movement of troops at the border and the Germans were not bringing any parcels, so if we got away we must trust to what we could pick up ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien

... difficulty, I boldly ventured to state objections which I meant to have kept out of sight, lest I should myself overturn a system that suited my purpose. I perceived their eagerness, saw there was no danger that they should stop at trifles even if I should happen to throw them a bone to pick, and the readiness of each reply raised my curiosity. I fearlessly drew out my heavy artillery, which they with ease and safety as fearlessly dismounted. With a breath my strong holds were all puffed down, like so many houses ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... despatches of vast importance have to be carried by a Hanoverian officer from Moidart to Fort William. The Jacobites arrange to drug the officer; and, to make assurance doubly sure, in case the drug should fail to act, they post a Highland marksman in a narrow glen to pick him off as he passes. The drug does act; but his lady-love, to save his military honour, assumes male attire and rides off with the despatches. We hear her horse's hoofs go clattering down the road; and then, as the curtain falls, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... the very parties against whom they are afterwards enforced. Our great clusters of corporations, huge trusts and fabulously wealthy multi-millionaires, employ the very best lawyers they can obtain to pick flaws in these statutes after their passage; but they also employ a class of secret agents who seek, under the advice of experts, to render hostile legislation innocuous by making it unconstitutional, often through the insertion of what appear ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... them all," he answered her objection, "and that it's foolish to pick out one here and there; but it interests me. I told you I was a medical student by training." He fingered over the square bottles, each in its socket. "This is not the usual safari drug list," he said. "I like to take these queer cases ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... "And pick and spade to boot," said Dick, "and a double rifle, for there are lions, and Lord knows what, between ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... now he got some very intelligent guidance. He did not buy Annette's dress, because part of her joy was to be the expedition in person to pick it out; but he stocked up with some gorgeous pieces of jewellery that were ten cents each, and ribbons whose colours were as far beyond expression as were the joys they could create in ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... bird be used to it; so I got you to furnish me with both. Polly was shy at first, but I generally get along very well with pets, and a little perseverance soon led to a complete private performance for my benefit. Polly would take the match, mute as wax, jump on the table, pick up the brightest thing he could see, in a great hurry, leave the match behind, and scuttle away round the room; but at first wouldn't give up the plunder to me. It was enough. I also took the liberty, as you know, of a general look round, and discovered ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... was already far advanced. The planters were pouring into Charleston, bringing their slaves with them, and white and black labored together at the earthworks. Rich men, who had never soiled their hands with toil before now, wielded pick and spade by the side of their black slaves. And it was rumored that Toutant Beauregard, a great engineer officer, now commander at the West Point Military Academy, would speedily resign, and come south to take command of ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... countries where the beautiful was felt, where the arts were objects of national importance, where a people assembled to award the palm between rival sculptors; and also, in comparatively modern times, when a reigning monarch did not disdain to pick up a painter's pencil, and a whole city mourned an artist's death, and paid honours to his remains; all the rank, wealth, genius, talent, taste, and intelligence of the people were concentrated in one grand focus. Among the states of ancient Greece and modern Italy, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... Pick, wash and boil enough spinach to measure a pint, when cooked, chopped and pounded into a soft paste. Put it into a stewpan with four ounces of fresh butter, a little grated nutmeg, a teaspoonful of salt. Cook and stir it about ten minutes. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... cold with the chill which dogs the heels of a dying fire on an early winter's night. An icy breath blew in under the door, and made something flutter that lay on the floor close to the broken frame. Westray stooped to pick it up, and found that he had in his hand a piece ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... subsidies, privatizing state industries, and laying off civil servants. (In 1995 little progress was made in these areas because the communist government had trouble formulating and implementing policies.) The new coalition government is planning to pick up the pace of reforms in 1996, focusing primarily on raising revenues to develop the rural sector by increasing taxation and privatization. Prospects for foreign trade and investment, particularly in areas other than power development and tourism, will continue to remain poor ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... hatreds, though perhaps we hate on different, or even opposite grounds, and I do not wish for a dispute with him, of which, if I say anything, I shall be in danger. If we differed on only one subject, instead of differing, as we do, on all but one, he would pick out that single subject to attack me on. I am not sure that even as host you will be safe. He is more acute in detecting points of opposition than most men are in finding subjects of agreement. He avoids meeting you on friendly or even on neutral ground. ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... neighbourhood more respectable and less demonstrative, skirt a common, are stopped at a porter's lodge and turn into a parkland. The glow of sunset is ended; the blue-grey of twilight is settling down. Between flowered borders we pick our way, pause here and there for directions and at last halt. Again the stretcher-bearers! As I am carried in I catch a glimpse of a low bungalow-building, with others like it dotted about beneath trees. There are red shaded lamps. Every one tiptoes in silence. Only ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... there she noticed, also, that the slant sunbeams were heating Sandy's head to what she judged to be an unhealthy temperature, and that his hat was lying uselessly at his side. To pick it up and to place it over his face was a work requiring some courage, particularly as his eyes were open. Yet she did it and made good her retreat. But she was somewhat concerned, on looking back, to see that the hat was removed, and that Sandy was ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... almost smell that trail, for it passed over little stretches of rock, you see. At such times I had to look around, guess about where it ought to be found where the earth began again, and in that way pick it up once more." ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter

... wounded fall about the street. Then the crowd usually runs away in all directions, and the troops at the governor's command take those who are supposed to be the ringleaders and lead them off under escort. Then they pick up the dying, the wounded, and the dead, covered with blood, sometimes women and children among them. The dead they bury and the wounded they carry to the hospital. Those whom they regard as the ringleaders they take to the town hall and have ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... that. That is why a shepherd's pipe is such a splendid thing. To pick out a tune and listen to it starts the mind out of its trance and promotes mental exercise. It does what gymnastics do ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... do so," exclaimed Cobenzl, "there would soon be men to pick up your sword in order to fight with it against the Republic and to recall the Bourbons to the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... incorrigibly careless. Are you not afraid to tax my curiosity so severely, and tempt me so pertinaciously, by strewing your keys in my path? The next time I pick up this one, which belongs to your escritoire, I shall engage some one to act as your guardian. Katie, be sure she takes that tonic mixture ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from the gray walls of an English abbey or castle. And yet every brick or stone, which we pick up among the former, had fallen ages before the foundation of the latter was begun. This is owing to the kindliness with which Natures takes an English ruin to her heart, covering it with ivy, as tenderly as Robin Redbreast covered the dead babes with forest leaves. She strives to make ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... military were called out, but as the mob knew that they did not dare fire without the command of the civil power, they were by no means disturbed by their presence. They still continued their work of destruction, while thieves and pick-pockets looked about for plunder. Nothing was done on the Monday for preventing mischief, except the issuing of a proclamation by a privy-council, offering a reward of L500 for those persons who had been concerned in destroying the Sardinian and Bavarian chapels; and the mob, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... emphatic angle at the hock, who commonly walked or lounged along in a lazy trot of five or six miles an hour; but, if a lively colt happened to come rattling up alongside, or a brandy-faced old horse-jockey took the road to show off a fast nag, and threw his dust into the Major's face, would pick his legs up all at once, and straighten his body out, and swing off into a three-minute gait, in a way that "Old Blue" himself need not have ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... instance of their work in keeping in touch with naval affairs the following story was told in naval circles: When the oil-ship Vacuum, with Lieutenant Thomas and a naval gun crew on board, sailed from this country, the captain had instructions where to pick up British destroyers at a certain point off the Irish coast. The Vacuum arrived at the designated spot, and before the war-ships arrived a submarine appeared out ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... deary!" cried the Governess, much relieved. She had feared the Chaplain might pick up the guilty magazine and find its pages cut only at the place where the French story was. And I am grieved to have to tell you that this is just what he did do later in the evening, and sat down in his private room and read about Roger and ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister

... families. Another ten names will do. The letter which accompanies the order says that from my well known zeal and loyalty it is doubted not that Southampton will furnish a hundred men, but if I begin with fifty that will be well enough, and we can pick out the others at ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... doctor betrayed no uneasiness, but expressed a wish for a consultation with another medical man. Meanwhile, the girl promised to meet Andre morning and evening in the same place, and give him such scraps of information as she had been able to pick up. For two whole days Mademoiselle de Mussidan's condition remained unchanged, and Andre spent his whole time between his own studio, the Avenue de Matignon, and M. de Breulh's, where he frequently met Madame ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... desired a black servant of Mr. Marchinton's to call me about day-break, as I desired to go out and pick berries. This was done, and I was up and dressed before any other member of the family was stirring. I lost no time, but quitted the house, and walked deliberately down to the schooner. No one was up on board of her, and I was obliged to give the mate a call, myself. This man now ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... put his pipe carefully on a nearby table and reached down to pick up his briefcase. He ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett

... iv Beauty. She starts to wurruk right away an' what Hogan calls th' doctrine iv av'rages is always with thim that starts early an' makes manny plays. But th' Dhream iv Beauty figures out that she can wait an' take her pick an' 'tis not ontil she is bumpin' thirty that she wakes up with a scream to th' peril iv her position an' runs out an' pulls a man down fr'm th' top iv a bus. Manny a plain but determined young woman have I seen happily ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne

... there was no mark as of spade or pick-axe; nor was the earth broken, nor had wagon passed thereon. We were sore dismayed when the watchman showed the thing to us; for the body we could not see. Buried indeed it was not, but rather covered with dust. Nor was there any sign as of wild beast or of dog that had torn it. Then there arose ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... screen of vines and creepers he flung ahead of him a miner's pick and shovel and gold-pan. Then he crawled out himself into the open. He was clad in faded overalls and black cotton shirt, with hobnailed brogans on his feet, and on his head a hat whose shapelessness and stains advertised the rough usage ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... scrambled into her just as the light was shut off, then the chaps on deck chucked the lady in. Next thing we were fending her off from the ship. I was shouting to the chaps on deck to jump and we'd pick them up, we'd got the oars out then. I tell you I was fuddled up for I'd got it in my head that the hooker was to port of us though I'd seen her with my own eyes to starboard. I was thinking we'd be taken down with ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... is it that she has inflicted for months on me?" he demanded hotly. "And on her father, too, and on all her friends? We can't pick up a newspaper any day, without going cold with fear that we will read of her maimed or dead in some accident. After all, it's only ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... results. The amusing presumption of domestic animals, and the comparative fearlessness of many wild creatures in the presence of man; the white clouds of gulls that hover about each incoming steamer in expectation of an alms of crumbs; the whirring of doves from temple- eaves to pick up the rice scattered for them by pilgrims; the familiar storks of ancient public gardens; the deer of holy shrines, awaiting cakes and caresses; the fish which raise their heads from sacred lotus- ponds when the stranger's shadow falls upon the ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... "I have written all this in an hour. O aye, I can write with the young men yet." He made the interlineation, rolled the scroll and sealed it. "I am sturdy, still." At that moment, he dropped his pen on the floor and bent to pick it up, but was forestalled by Hotep. Then he addressed the scrolls, carefully dried the ink with a sprinkling of sand and delivered one to Hotep, the other to Kenkenes. "This to the king, and that to Snofru. The gods ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... wrong to gather all that we wish of the beautiful flowers with which the earth is carpeted? Has not Nature grown them in her great garden in such abundance that all we pick will make no difference to her? Let us go with the children on their rambles after flowers and learn if Nature does take any account of their innocent ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks

... possessor, who was one of the most cultured and shrewdest collectors of his day. His collection was his life-work—from boyhood till his early death in 1891. It was largely made up of the amalgamation of great collections. In his day Tapling had the first pick in every direction, and, as a result, his collection is to-day one of the grandest and richest and most scientific general collections extant. Great rarities may be said to be conspicuous by their prominence and by their ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell

... tell. Sardis was strongly fortified on every side but one. Here the rocky height on which it was built was so steep as to be deemed inaccessible, and walls were thought unnecessary. Yet a soldier of the garrison made his way down this precipice to pick up his helmet, which had fallen. A Persian soldier saw him, tried to climb up, and found it possible. Others followed him, and the garrison, to their consternation, found the enemy within their walls. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... can remember, I had not then even spoken to an archdeacon. I have felt the compliment to be very great. The archdeacon came whole from my brain after this fashion;—but in writing about clergymen generally, I had to pick up as I went whatever I might know or pretend to know about them. But my first idea had no reference to clergymen in general. I had been struck by two opposite evils,—or what seemed to me to be evils,—and with an absence of all art-judgment ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... strongly qualified with blasphemies and curses. "Send out a boat!" "There was a woman aboard that steamboat!" "Lower your boats!" "Run a craft right down, with your big boat!" "Send out a boat and pick up the crew! "The cries rose and sank, and finally ceased; through the lattice of the state-room window some lights shone faintly on ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... hunt out some open country where he can find grass, or roots, or maybe mice or gophers—almost anything to eat. Besides, he likes to look around over the country, just like a white goat, apparently. So he will pick out a sort of feeding-ground or loafing-ground right in one of these slides—a place where the snow-slips have carried away the trees and rocks perhaps many years earlier and repeated it from ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... which reigns there—they have a complete assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his choice, he may found ...
— The Republic • Plato



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