to pick up
24
4.0
- phrasal verb
:
picotear
- The child tried to pick up a few crumbs from the table after dinner.
- picking up crumbs
- pick up bits
- pick up and eat
Examples
-
Well, I picked up the wild rice with the French morel mushrooms... on a bed of radicchio lettuce, and there's a little Dijon dressing on the side.
-
Harry picks up the dusty morsels, chewing them with relish, grinning like a happy puppy.
Fiction book (2002) -
And so I felt like that was easy hand, like just little hand foods that they can pick up, people can eat while they work.
-
And we had a series of little birds picking them up for us.
-
Pick it up and eat it with your hands.
-
Yeah, Rasheed just picked up some grass off of the desert and now we're eating it.
-
Drew bends down and picks up the goods, handing them back to the boy and the father.
Fiction book (1991) -
At breakfast, she would pick up little bits of toast with her fingers.
-
During the picnic, we noticed the birds picking up seeds from the ground.
Synonyms
116
3.6
To eat small amounts and not finish a meal
56
2.0
To eat small, gentle bites slowly or a little at a time
9
3.4
To eat small, quick bites like a bird
5
4.6
Eat very small amounts of food when not feeling hungry
1
4.7
To eat only a little food and not show interest
How Much
Surface Forms
Morphology
pick + up
The police sense 'to take someone into custody' is a pragmatic extension of the basic, transparent meaning 'pick up' = 'collect/take someone' (pick + up). However, the specific legal sense 'arrest' is a specialised interpretation that is not fully predictable from the parts alone and typically requires contextual or cultural knowledge, so it is only partially transparent to learners.
Etymology
Pick up for eating small amounts comes from birds and animals that pick bits of food from the ground and bring them up to their beaks. That's why it means 'to eat small pieces or to peck at food'.