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Pick out   /pɪk aʊt/   Listen
Pick out

verb
1.
Pick out, select, or choose from a number of alternatives.  Synonyms: choose, select, take.  "Choose a good husband for your daughter" , "She selected a pair of shoes from among the dozen the salesgirl had shown her"
2.
Detect with the senses.  Synonyms: discern, distinguish, make out, recognise, recognize, spot, tell apart.  "I can't make out the faces in this photograph"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Pick out" Quotes from Famous Books



... continued Mr Bright. "All that the men and lads round 'em have got to do with the letters there is to arrange them for the stampers, with their backs and stamps all turned one way. We call that facing the letters. They have also to pick out and pitch into baskets, as you see, all book-packets, parcels, and newspapers that may have been posted by mistake in ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... United Italy, of modern Hellas, of France and Germany and England, hang side by side with the Chinese dragon and the starry flag—signs of the cosmopolitan character of the congregation. Greek and Roman Catholics, Jews and joss-worshippers, go there; few Protestants, and no Baptists. It is easy to pick out the children in their seats by nationality, and as easy to read the story of poverty and suffering that stands written in more than one mother's haggard face, now beaming with pleasure at the little ones' ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... openly congratulated himself on his find. "I really wasn't sure I knew how to pick out a horse," he remarked, in a glow of retrospective modesty, "but I certainly got ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... are brown-faced watermen from Thames and Humber and Tyne, others are ruddy-cheeked Etonians or University men, or hard-trained Londoners, and others have come over the Atlantic; John Bull's younger brothers from New Brunswick, not his cousins from New York. You might pick out among these the finest specimens of our species, so far as pluck and muscle make ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... all the little children were collected together, and that every papa and mamma could pick out their own ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... the Very Imp; "he can go around, and pick out his previous existence. We have here all sorts of vile creepers, crawlers, hissers, and snorters. I suppose he thinks anything will be ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... Prophets are happy that they can read here a line and there a line. As for your Institutes, and Academies of Science, they strive bravely; and, from amid the thick-crowded, inextricably intertwisted hieroglyphic writing, pick out, by dexterous combination, some Letters in the vulgar Character, and therefrom put together this and the other economic Recipe, of high avail in Practice. That Nature is more than some boundless Volume of such Recipes, or huge, well-nigh inexhaustible Domestic-Cookery ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... get a new focus before he can allow his mind to dwell on the things that he sees. One day's issue of any good newspaper is enough to show what a revolution is upon us, for we merely need to run the eye down columns at random to pick out suggestive little scraps. At present we cannot get that "larger view" about which Dr. W.B. Carpenter used to talk; he was wont to study hundreds and thousands of soundings and measurements piecemeal, and the chaos of figures gradually took form until at length the doctor had in his mind a ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... on a white background in a good light. Select, as a test color, a skein of light green color, such as would be obtained by mixing a pure green with white. Ask the examinee to select and pick out from the heap all those skeins which appear to him to be of the same color, whether of lighter or darker shades. A color-blind person will select amongst others some of the confusion-colors, e.g., pink, yellow. A colored plate showing these should be hung ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... After recounting a dozen events of no consequence whatever, "we came home to a late supper, well repaid for our day's outing." These compositions may be quite correct in the choice of words, sentences, and paragraphs, and with it all be flat. There is nothing to them; they get the reader nowhere. Pick out one of the many incidents. Work it up. Turn back to the paragraph from Stevenson and notice how little there is to it when reduced to bare outline. He has worked it up so that it is good. Always remember that a short anecdote well told is worth ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... well to be sounded, and Snatchblock reported "two feet of water in the hold;" he accordingly ordered the pumps to be rigged, and set some of his own people to work them. Pedro again came aft, and assured him that he felt certain he could pick out a score or more of blacks who could be trusted on deck, and that they would willingly take the duty, glad to escape from the confinement ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... advantage, such as digestibility, or cheapness, or pleasant taste as flavoring for other more nutritious, but less interesting, foods. But some foods have much higher degrees of nutritiousness or digestibility or wholesomeness than others; so that our problem is to pick out from a number of foods that "taste good" to us, those which are the most nutritious, the most digestible, and the most wholesome, and to see that we get plenty of them. It is not that certain foods, or classes of food, are "good," and ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... but try; that will give sixteen of us, which is about their strength. You must remain on board. Purvis shall command the dinghy; Lechmere will go with me. Pick out thirteen hands. You and Perry can manage with seven and the five negroes, but keep a sharp lookout for that squall. Remember that you will have very short warning. We are only a mile from the shore, and as it is coming down from the hills you may not see it on the ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... development means the slow constitution of an organ—the brain—which shall direct the body. So in society—an association of individuals, with slow constitution of a directing organ, called the Government. The problem of civilisation is to establish government on scientific principles—to pick out the fit for rule—to distinguish between the Multitude and the Select, and at the same time to balance their working. It is nonsense to talk about Equality. Evolution is engaged in cephalising the political aggregate—as it did the aggregate of cells in the animal organism. It ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... dominion of the Romans. But were I capable of giving you a particular description of all the monuments of antiquity in and near this town, it would compose a little book, instead of a sheet or two of paper. I shall therefore only pick out a few things which have afforded me the most entertainment, and I hope may give you a little; but I shall begin with mentioning what must first give you concern, in saying that in that part of the town called la Roquette, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... to land that girl, whoever she is," grated the official. "Now that we know who he is, it shouldn't be hard to pick out the women he's been trailing with lately. Then we can sift 'em down until the right one is left. It ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... his son had brought. When he had finished, the son said: "Tomorrow morning the relatives of my mother will come over here and take you down to the village. My mother has three sisters who have their work bags made identically the same as mother's. Were they to mix them up they could not each pick out her own without looking inside so as to identify them by what they have in them. You will be asked to pick out mother's work bag, and if you fail they will trample you to death. Next they will tell you ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin

... indeed. For the first few hours, I tried to pick out, by compass, the route we were following. But my calculations were soon upset; doubtless a mistake due to the swaying motion of the camel. I put the compass back in one of my saddle-bags. From that time on, Eg-Anteouen was our master. We could ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... at trailin' rabbits in de daytime as he was at treein' 'possums at night. I was young and spry, and it didn't seem to make no diff'unce what I et dem days. Big gyardens was scattered over de place whar-some-ever Marster happened to pick out a good gyarden spot. Dem gyardens all b'longed to our Marster, but he fed us all us ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... keep a secret or tell a lie with easy grace if it were to save his life—the notion of making him a diplomatist is very absurd. No doubt statesmen are better without original ideas—their business is to pick out the practical ideas of other men and work them well—but George wants ability, poor fellow! They ought to have put him into the Church: he reads well, he could have read other men's sermons very effectively, and the duke has some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... yet we cannot entirely condemn the use of it, even in a heroic poem; nor absolutely reject that in speculation, which. Mr. Dryden and Mr. Pope have enobled by their practice. We acknowledge too, that in some particular views, what way of writing has the advantage over this. You may pick out mere lines, which, singly considered, look mean and low, from a poem in blank verse, than from one in rhime, supposing them to be in other respects equal. For instance, the following verses out of Milton's Paradise Lost, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... Master Paul?' Well, the idea almost took my breath away, teacher, but I wasn't going to let Mrs. Lynde see THAT. I just looked her straight in the face . . . like this . . . and I said, 'Mrs. Lynde, father made a pretty good job of picking out my first mother and I could trust him to pick out just as good a one the second time.' And I CAN trust him, teacher. But still, I hope, if he ever does give me a new mother, he'll ask my opinion about her before it's too late. There's Mary Joe coming to call us to tea. I'll go and consult with ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the ball whizzing under the sink. "Where'll we go?" he cried. The bottoms of his trouser legs hung about his knees in a fringe. Now as he did another hop-skip into the air, not so much because of animal spirits as through sheer mental relief, all that fringe whipped and snapped. "Pick out a place, Grandpa!" he bade. "Where do y' ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... "Then pick out from your old gang the five best men you have. No favoritism—understand me? The five best men! You know them better than I do. I want them to do the sort of thing you have been doing, each of them to act as section ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... selected all his best horses, which could stand a hard run, and gave orders for the wagon-train to follow as fast as possible, while he pushed ahead on a forced march. At the same time I was ordered to pick out five or six of the best Pawnees, and go on in advance of the command, keeping ten or twelve miles ahead on the trail, so that when we overtook the Indians we could find out the location of their camp, and send word to the troops before they came in sight, thus affording ample time to ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... Irish, and Catholics too. Well, Roberts, I don't see what you can ask better. All you've got to do is to pick out a respectable butter-ball of that religion and nationality, and tell her you're Mrs. Roberts's husband, and you're to keep her from slipping away ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells

... was any blank, but, on the contrary, because my brother's wrath had boiled over in such a hubble-bubble of epithets, some only half erased, some doubtfully erased, that it was impossible, out of the various readings, to pick out the true classical text. "Infamous," "disgusting," and "odious" struggled for precedency; and infamous they might be; but on the other affixes I held my own private opinions. For some days my brother's displeasure continued to roll in reverberating thunders; but at length ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... take Sally Ann's advice, and we was talkin' about app'intin' a committee to go to town the follerin' Monday and pick out the cyarpet, when all at once 'Lizabeth Taylor—she was our treasurer—she spoke up, and says she, 'There ain't any use app'intin' that committee. The money's gone,' she says, sort o' short and quick. 'I kept it in my top bureau drawer, and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... age some of the great houses did their best work in writing and study. Thus to pick out one or two facts from a string of them. In 1104 Abbot Peter of Gloucester gave many books to the abbey library. In 1180 the refounded abbey of Whitby owned a fair library of theological, historical, and classical ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... came into note through its introduction, should practically end his political career with its downfall. The faults of selection before survey were obvious from the first. The 'selector,' being allowed to purchase in any part of the colony, used often to pick out the heart of the squatter's leasehold run. It became, of course, the squatter's interest to starve him out, and the selections, being isolated instead of contiguous, were ill able to ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... a unit is to get ten or a dozen leaders together at dinner or luncheon and organize; then pick out other men who are of importance in the community and add them to ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp

... chronometer in their waistcoat pocket, and won't tell the mate how far the dead reckoning is out. He was rather the other way, and I was glad of it, for he generally let me work the sights he took, and just ran his eye over my figures afterwards. I am bound to say his eye was pretty good, for he would pick out a mistake in a logarithm, or tell me that I had worked the "Equation of Time" with the wrong sign, before it seemed to me that he could have got as far as "half the sum, minus the altitude." He was always right, too, and besides he knew a lot about iron ships and local ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... them? No one knows. Who has inspired them with the vitality of action? No one can say. The spirit of the hive is at work within them; already they are swarming in obedience to the silent command. Pick out a hundred girls as they go to work in the city, and ask them why they are toiling from one day to another. They will all—or ninety-nine of them—give you the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... you called it just now, hopeless, and you were going back, I should feel ashamed of you all. You take my advice, sir, and stick to it like a man. It's like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, I know; but the needle's there, and you've got to pick out the hay bit by bit till there's nothing left but dust—it's sand here—then you've got to blow the dust ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... qualities would be selected by those terribly clever Germans for the furtherance of their nefarious schemes. It would be quite in keeping with the German national character, that character of bottomless artfulness, to pick out two such young girls with just that type of empty, baby face, and send them over to help weave the gigantic invisible web with which America was ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... a new one, Hilda,' she said. 'And Wastei must pick out a tall, straight sapling from the forest—for Sigmundskron has a lord again, and the old flag must float on the wind when he ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... you, Miss Stella?" she cried, kissing the thin cheek cordially. "I've already heard about that dress. Winnie Mayfield helped Mary pick out the cloth and trimmings, and she said you would make it the sweetest thing in the valley. Pink is my color. Where is— oh!" She had descried it as it lay on the bed, and with hands clasped in delight, she sprang toward it. "Oh, it is a dream—a dream, Miss Stella! ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... puzzled for an emblem to denote the harsher and more uncharitable side of the Puritan character, I should pick out this gallows on Witch Hill near Salem, as being ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... said Hardy, "you will shake down after a bit; but what I want you to do is, to help me to pick out a pair of light carriage horses from here. I have seen a lot, and you will have plenty to choose from. They will suit my mother, and I wish to take them over as ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... aisle again, trying to pick out at least one of the occupants of the old-fashioned benches who would look as though she might be chummy and nice; ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... Bibliotaph's ample black waistcoat. From time to time he would vent 'a series of small private laughs,' especially if he was on the point of announcing some fresh illustration of the fallibility of inexperienced writers. Finally the uncomfortable author said, 'Don't sit there and pick out the mistakes.' To which the Bibliotaph triumphantly replied, 'What other motive is there for reading it ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... minutes' doze, but getting to the landing eventually, and tramping into his room in the second story, with no little elation to find it still there. Were it not for these slight symptoms of potations, he was such a one as you would pick out of a thousand for a miser. A year or two ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... these things we lose sight of in the undoubted virtues, abilities, and services of this great Queen. Historians have other work than to pick out spots on the sun. The dark spot, if there is one upon Elizabeth's character, was her coquetry in private life. It is impossible to tell whether or not she exceeded the bounds of womanly virtue. She was probably slandered and vilified ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... them was of necessity carried on by pantomime. The old gentleman led the way into a room, the walls of which were literally covered with violins, from which Spohr gathered the idea that he was to pick out that which he considered the best. After trying them all he had to decide between the merits of half a dozen, and, when he finally gave his opinion, the gentleman seemed delighted, and offered him a five pound note to compensate him for his trouble. This ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee

... have quieted down, he will resign. That will give Gordon the appointment of his successor, and I'm thinking it might be a pretty good thing for you, as well as for the people of the State, if Alec should happen to pick out a bright young fellow who knows your side of the question as well as the people's, and who is square enough to give you a fair show when it comes to framing ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... numerous are Russian serf owners that, though careful scrutiny reveals to one's sight a quantity of outre peculiarities, they are, as a class, exceedingly difficult to portray, and one needs to strain one's faculties to the utmost before it becomes possible to pick out their variously subtle, their almost invisible, features. In short, one needs, before doing this, to carry out a prolonged probing with the aid of an insight sharpened in the acute ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... their households, their children or their husbands are of more importance than their public duties? And having the best means for deciding this question, have they not the right to decide? Who has the right to pick out the females of a jury and challenge them with the question whether they are not neglecting their households or their husbands? Who challenges a male juror and demands whether he left his family well provided, and his wife well cherished? or if, through his detention in court, the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... reasonable to pick out the less fantastic parts of the Krishna legend and interpret them as history, yet we may fairly attach significance to the fact that many episodes represent him as in conflict with Brahmanic institutions and hardly maintaining the position of Vishnu incarnate.[377] ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... your game, eh? Trying to blacken other boys' characters!" sneered Aaron Poole. "Well, it won't work with me, for I know you too well, Dave Porter. Don't I know where you came from—the Crumville poorhouse? I guess I can trust my son to pick out the right kind of friends. You are jealous of him, because those other boys won't go with the like of you! Don't talk to me! Only——" And Aaron Poole raised his forefinger again. "Remember my warning, when you get to Oak Hall!" And then he strode away, his thin lips tightly drawn, and ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... pick out a career more cheerless than that of Dancer, the miser, as he figures in the "Old Bailey Reports," a prey to the most sordid persecutions, the butt of his neighbourhood, betrayed by his hired man, his house beleaguered by the impish schoolboy, and he himself ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... guess they won't," she laughed. "You pick out the one you want to keep, and next ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... want you to pick out a good-sized water- melon and half a dozen musk-melons, and I'll leave them at Bagley's cottage to-morrow night as I go down to the village. In old times they would have stolen our crop; now they shall share ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... crab to be caught that way. I'll take the lead, Bucky, and Long Jim last, and we've got the ship. We can let the fire-room chinks and the nigger go until morning. We'll take the bridge and keep the old tub going until day and then pick out a good place to drop her when we've got what we want. Petrak's got the wheel now, and we can do for the chinks, come day. Blessed if I know what has become of Trenholm, but we'll find him in time and attend to him proper. Remember: make for the bridge once we've got the skipper. ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... parts for lard. Put the lean and bony parts to soak over night in cold water in order to extract the blood and dirt. When the head is cleaned put it over the fire to boil, using water enough to cover it. Boil until the meat separates readily from the bones. Then remove it from the fire and pick out all the bones. Drain off the liquor, saving a part of it for future use. Chop the meat up finely with a chopping knife. Return it to the kettle and pour on enough of the liquor to cover the meat. Let it boil slowly for fifteen minutes to a half-hour. Season to taste with salt and pepper ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... besides. Now, look here, I don't want you to think I'm offering that to pay you for Molly. I ain't paying for any horses for Mr. Wilson. He is a gentleman that don't need ask favors of anybody, and he's going to pick out his own horses. You tell him I said he was a good judge of a horse. I want you to tell him I scorn to offer you money for this here Molly horse of yours—I scorn to do so. Mr. Wilson will make more than two hundred dollars in a day or so, the way cotton is going up this week. I just ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... a mere scratch and does not distress me in the least," he went on, speaking very correct English, in his curiously accented voice. He appeared to hesitate a little to pick out the words and expressions he wanted, and, often, in such cases, the wrong words, though correct enough in ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton

... has an admitted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the Tower of London), of turning all live stock on the forest at proper seasons, bidentibus exceptis.* The reason, I presume, why sheep** are excluded, is, because, being such close grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving. (* For the privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king annually seven bushels of oats.) (** In the Holt, where a fun stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till lately, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

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

... not be apt to select an incompetent magistrate, and has no strong motive for choosing one specially likely to give judgment against the defendant. But in civil cases, for the lawyer who institutes them to pick out his judge at will from a number who are equally competent to assume jurisdiction, and at the same time (as is generally the law) are left wholly without salaries, receiving nothing except fees for cases actually brought before them, is to place the defendant in a much ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD

... poverty, for it is the result of extravagance and drunkenness. This assertion makes one stare and then consider whose faces show the greater evidence of the action of different liquors. It would be an easy matter in a national gathering to pick out the class and the strata of society that is the support of the liquor traffic ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... is a tolerable uniformity in the distribution of insects over those parts of a country in which there is a similarity in the vegetation, any deficiency being easily accounted for by the absence of wood or uniformity of surface. The traveller hastily passing through such a country can at once pick out a collecting ground which will afford him a fair notion of its entomology. Here the case is different. There are certain requisites of a good collecting ground which can only be ascertained to exist by some days' search in the vicinity of each village. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... struggling ahead and Scott astern, but we were the worst off as the leading team had topped the rise and I was too blind to pick out a better trail. We fairly played ourselves out that time, and finally had to give it up and relay. Halving the load we went forward about a mile with it, and, leaving that lot, went back for the remainder. So done were my team that we could ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... of his men to pick out a square block of firewood, as nearly as possible the thickness of the height of one of the steps. After trying several they found one that would do, and on placing it on the stair next to the top it formed with the step above it a level platform. On this the chair was placed, ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... the dwarf pines and cedars. Bullets were pattering all over the valley. Several of the Winchesters had been slain in the early firing, and they lay where they had fallen. Others were wounded, but they bound up their own hurts and used their rifles, whenever they could pick out a ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... man who stood on this solitary point paid little attention to the rain that ran off the peak of his sailor's cap or to the gusts of wind that blew about his bushy gray beard. He was still following, with an eye accustomed to pick out objects far at sea, one speck of purple that was now fading into the gray mist of the rain; and the longer he looked the less it became, until the mingled sea and sky showed only the smoke that the great steamer left in its wake. As he stood there, motionless and regardless of everything around ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... would be as good as any schoolhouse fellow you could pick out," said he. "But if you want to ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... followed suit it is not wise to pick out a loud tone of voice and tell him about it. Reach under the table and kick him on the shins. If it hurts him he is a cheater; if it doesn't hurt him always remember that ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh

... the regulation hand used, and wisely insisted upon, in the Civil Service, and familiar to the general public in telegrams and official letters. Yet it is safe to say that there is not a telegraph or post office clerk in England who would not be able to pick out the writing of any colleague with which he ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn

... "we didn't get any stuff set last night. Power was off. Better come out and pick out the plate you want to ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... the wall, and at the topmost of it turned and looked aback on the blue country which he had ridden through stretching many a league below, and tried if he could pick out Upmeads from amongst the diverse wealth of the summer land: but Upmeads Water was hidden, and he could see nothing to be sure of to tell him whereabouts the High House stood; yet he deemed that he could make out the Debateable ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... on them, captain," shouted Monty from below. "Try to pick out the boat that has Miss Gray on board. Pull away, boys! This means a hundred dollars to every one of you—yes, a thousand if we have to ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... three-inch timber. Stages have been erected at intervals above the palisades with miniature embrasures in the timber, for the muskets of the sharpshooters, who take refuge within these box-like stages to pick out the chiefs of an attacking force. An inner ditch, with the sand or soil thrown up three or four feet high against the palings, serves as protection for the main body of the defenders, who kneel in the ditch, and are thus enabled to withstand a very large force. For ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... 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

... 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 Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... sometimes had some of his own. I therefore can claim that I have no vulgar itch of innovation in anything I say about any of these institutions. Certainly I have none in that particular one which I am now obliged to pick out of the list; a type of institution to which I have genuine and personal reasons for being friendly and grateful: I mean the great Tudor foundations, the public schools of England. They have been praised ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... Uncle Jerry Chuck—"I wish, when you folks jump the wall, you'd pick out a different place. You disturb me a dozen times a day. I'm losing lots of sleep on your account. And if I continue to lose my rest I'll be ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey

... guards there in their new uniforms." And he was right; in military matters it is the man that produces the real effect, as to appearance, upon the long run; and the practised eye of the old campaigner would prefer a Waterloo man in a smock-frock to any flunkey you could pick out, even though he were dressed up as fine as Lady L——'s favourite chasseur. We assert, then, that a scrupulous attention to the nature of the service should form the basis and the starting point of all discussions as to military costume; but we will not go so far as to say that ornament ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... to-night, though, for the lamps have all been taken away. I do not wish to go there, anyhow, except in the daytime. It is a pokerish kind of place. Do you believe in ghosts? I do not, but, if I were a ghost, I would pick out that library for a good place to hide in. Come along. You are a foreigner, and any kind of good Mexican ghost ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... programme of every tour The General made emphasises so strongly his advocacy of hard work that one really hesitates to pick out any one Campaign as more remarkable than another. What is, however, extraordinary in connexion with one of his far-away Australian journeys is our having letters which so much more than any others give particulars of ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... quick ear and could already pick out little tunes on the piano with one finger, though, so far, he had found musical notation as difficult as every other kind ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... end of a French duel the pair hug and kiss and cry, and praise each other's valor; then the surgeons make an examination and pick out the scratched one, and the other one helps him on to the litter and pays his fare; and in return the scratched one treats to champagne and oysters in the evening, and then "the incident is closed," as the French say. It is all polite, and gracious, and pretty, and impressive. At the ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... and her sisters, it's clear. One can't mistake the rounded chin, the level brows, the promise of womanhood. Women should always be photographed in evening dress if, like the Misses Percival, they have nothing to hide. But now to pick out our Miss Percival. You will observe that the young ladies' names are neatly ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... bullies," put in Fatty. "They don't feel like tackling a fellow of their size. They like to pick out little chaps." ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield

... was Auntie who turned the cleverest trick. She'd got real enthusiastic by Wednesday mornin', and what does she do but dash down to the Maison Felice, pick out a two-hundred-dollar evenin' gown, and have it sent up with a fitter. Vee says Myra simply wouldn't open the box for half an hour; but then she softened up, and after she'd been buckled into this pink creation with ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... intrinsic value and never will have any. Nevertheless we consider that right now[1] is one of the times for buying stocks. There are unusual bargains to be had, although keen discrimination is necessary in order to be able to pick out the bargains. ...
— Successful Stock Speculation • John James Butler

... take on the unenviable job of sorting out the nomenclature of cultivated plants, though the results of their labours affect us all. The rules are set out fully in the Code, and here I will attempt only to pick out one or ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various

... unfortunate, more disgusted with himself and with all else than he ever had been before. Ashamed of the wretched part he had just been enacting, he felt almost childish repugnance to returning to Vivey, and tried to pick out the paths that would take him there by the longest way. But he was not sufficiently accustomed to laying out a route for himself, and when he thought he had a league farther to go, and had just leaped over an intervening hedge, the pointed ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... peculiarity of this individual was, however, that in his boyhood some evil-minded person had tattooed eyes all over his countenance with such marvellous skill that it was difficult at a short distance to pick out his real ones among so many counterfeits. On this strange personage Master Cyprian determined to exercise his talents for mischief, the more so as he learned that he was extremely superstitious, and also that he had left behind him in Portsmouth a strong-minded spouse of whom he stood in ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... exclaimed. "We have not a man who has any idea of artillery, and I will appoint you to the command of the guns. You shall each pick out as many men as you require, and train them as artillerymen. This will be ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... executive man is a man who ponders his ends, who makes his ideas of the results of his actions as clear and full as possible. The people we called weak-willed or self-indulgent always deceive themselves as to the consequences of their acts. They pick out some feature which is agreeable and neglect all attendant circumstances. When they begin to act, the disagreeable results they ignored begin to show themselves. They are discouraged, or complain of being thwarted in their good purpose by a hard fate, and shift to some other line of action. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... The streets all thronged with lasses gay; And from a crowd so great, no doubt, Sweethearts enough I may pick out. In verity, verity, verity ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... flexures. The river very strange; walls black, gloomy and precipitous. The landing on the south side was solid rock, here a bit of sandy beach between bars of rock. The Doctor is already here. He makes a fire of driftwood near the wall of black rock under which is the stretch of sand. I pick out my sleeping place and begin ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... he seated himself in the Deacon's chair, understanding the importance of his position, "we've got to do something to get ahead of the girls, an' I go in for havin' each one say what he thinks is best. After that we can pick out a plan. Now, what do you think ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis

... shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... course, but which way should she go? She was completely turned around. After all, what mattered it? One way might be as good as another, so it led not home to the cabin which could never be home again. Why not give the horse his head, and let him pick out a safe path? Was there danger that he might carry her back to the cabin again, after all? Horses did that sometimes. But at least he could guide through this maze of perplexity till some surer place was reached. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... Charleton. "Do like we always do. Pick out one horse and ride him down. They will be awful soft after such a winter. Don't get side-tracked from one horse to another. They'd kill the Moose off at that. He's getting pretty old for this kind of thing. I'll see you at ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... for Caroline's birthday. I want to get her somethin' she'll like, and she's got pretty nigh everything under the sun. Say, Jim, you've been workin' too hard, yourself. Why don't you take to-morrow off and cruise around the stores helpin' me pick out ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... say for certain that horses have a sense of humour, but I sometimes think they must. I had a horse years ago who used to take delight in teasing girls. I can describe it no other way. He would pick out a girl a quarter of a mile off; always some haughty, well-dressed girl who was feeling pleased with herself. As we approached he would eye her with horror and astonishment. It was too marked to escape notice. A ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... propriety directs us to conceal, or if it is expressed in a manner that incidentally awakens low ideas. The lives of the greater part of men can present particulars of a low kind, but it is only a low imagination that will pick out these for representation. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... was near him, and who had just reloaded, he said in a calm, strong, encouraging tone—that voice of the thoroughly good officer which comes to the help of the shaken soldier like a reinforcement—"Now, my lad, steadily. Pick out your man; take your time and aim sure. Do you ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... smart, freshened up her two bows, threw her green muslin scarf over her shoulders and went down to the parlor to pick out her favorite tune—The Bluebells of Scotland—with one finger on the piano. Meanwhile, the landlady spread the cloth: bread, marmalade, watercress, two eggs. Then, according to instructions received, Glass-Eye announced to Miss Lily that tea was ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... who was somewhat mollified on finding that he was to keep guard with a loaded gun over his shoulder. "I say, though, doesn't it seem queer that nobody lives out here, and that father can come and pick out quite a big estate, and then apply to the government and have ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... his signal, Master Bart, and then ride up the slope here, and go right at the buffler. Don't be afraid, my lad, but pick out the one you mean to have, and then stick to him till you've brought him down with a bullet ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... assumed, and is shown by trap-nest records, that eggs thus selected in the spring of the year are from the poorer, rather than from the better layers. This is because hens that have not been laying during the winter will lay very heavily during the spring season. Many breeders have attempted to pick out the good layers by the appearance of the hens. Before the advent of the trap-nest the "egg type" of hen was believed to be a positive indication of a good layer. The "egg type" hen had slender neck, small head, long, deep body of a wedge shape. Various ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... intend to try you," returned Johnston. "The firm have some limits over there near the foot of the mountain that they want me to prospect before I go back, and pick out the best place for a camp. I've been trying to make out to go over there all winter, but getting hurt upset my plans, and I've not had a chance until now. So I'm thinking of making a start to-morrow. There's nothing much else to do except to ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley



Words linked to "Pick out" :   sieve out, specify, propose, impanel, field, anoint, screen out, excerpt, espouse, limit, think of, define, pick, vote, plump, resolve, nominate, make up one's mind, cream off, screen, winnow, dial, comprehend, perceive, set, determine, extract, follow, cull out, go, single out, sort, sieve, elect, empanel, skim off, panel, draw, take out, decide, sift, vote in, assign, pick over, discriminate, set apart, adopt, fix



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