to pick off
22
8.0
- phrasal verb
- /pɪk ɔf/
- Offensive
:
matar uno por uno
- We'll be picked off as soon as we move.
- a sniper picked off
- pick off soldiers
- pick off people
He's so good at picking, picking off little constituencies.
- He's so good at picking, picking off little constituencies.
- The English kept on, you know, sending, you know, forces and, and, you know, picking off, you know, Spanish ships here and there.
- And those people are in a very vulnerable position and they are being well picked off by the current mob.
- Now while it's going on, Taylor's asking me on the side to try and pick people off for him.
- And of course, then people become a little bit disgruntled and you become easy to be picked off by some of your, your, your competitors.
- They they just, I suppose they're out of their minds, but they would run and of course our rifle would pick them off, you know, but it's just a, it's a tormenting.
- And I picked some machine Gunners off on a rooftop who was shooting at us, pick some more guys off in the field.
- So that means you have to set your bid ask spread wide enough that you can be picked off and still make a profit.
- They picked a sitting president off of not even just Twitter, but Facebook, I think Pinterest.
Examples
-
They can pick us off like sitting ducks.
-
"If we just sit still we'll get picked off one by one."
Fiction book (1996) -
What, is he gonna pick us off one by one?
-
Try and pick off the leaders.
-
The soldiers would be picked off one by one.
Fiction book (2001) -
Would you guys just, uh, leave me hanging out there to get picked off?
-
If you move, you will either be picked off by Americans or Mexicans.
Blog text (29) -
We will be picked off one by one and tossed into internment camps for reeducation.
Blog text (2) -
If they were all trying to double-team her to subvert her ruling, she would pick them off one by one, starting with this meddling lawyer.
Fiction book (1999) -
The sniper was able to pick off the enemy soldiers from a distance, one by one.
Synonyms
44
4.8
Destroy almost all members of a group, like a type of animal or product
27
9.9
To kill someone on purpose
19
9.9
Kill someone as part of a crime
5
9.3
To kill someone on purpose, usually secretly and as part of a crime
Antonyms
How Deadly
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to remove by pulling or plucking away' is directly derivable from combining 'pick' (to remove or pluck) with the particle 'off' (indicating removal or away). This is a compositional phrasal-verb pattern common in English (and paralleled in many languages), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Pick off may come from the simple image of someone picking fruit off a tree, taking each item one by one. Hunters or snipers did the same with targets, so pick off came to mean 'to shoot, kill, or remove one by one'.