🎸 Playing guitar 🎸 To play music 🍓 To gather by hand

to pickin'

9.9

To play a guitar by plucking or strumming the strings

verb
/ˈpɪkɪn/

Informal

: tocar

He spent the afternoon pickin' his guitar on the front porch.

Examples

They love pickin' bluegrass tunes together at family gatherings.
You could hear her pickin' softly in the living room as the sun set.
He loves pickin' the guitar on weekends.
Are you pickin' that banjo again?
He spent the afternoon pickin' his guitar on the front porch.
You could hear her pickin' softly in the living room as the sun set.
They love pickin' bluegrass tunes together at family gatherings.

Synonyms

to pick

vsto pickin'

179 3.2

To pluck instrument strings with fingers or a small tool

is the informal dialectal form used in casual speech for the same action

to strum

vsto pickin'

6 3.7

To play a string instrument by sweeping fingers or a pick across the strings in a steady rhythm

is a general term covering both single notes and rhythmic sweeping actions

to pluck the string

vsto pickin'

1 3.9

Gently pull and release a string on an instrument like a guitar or harp to make a sound

is used more broadly for playing strings rather than only single gentle pulls

Idioms

pickin' and grinnin'

Informal

9.9

People play music and smile together in a happy, relaxed way

How Skillful

to solo

3 4.2

to pickin'

Informal

9.9

to pick

179 3.2

to strum

6 3.7

Surface Forms

pickin' infinitive

picked past

picked past participle

pickin' present participle

pickin's third person singular

Morphology

pickin' = picking (transparent) = pick + ing

The word is the colloquial clipped spelling of 'picking', with no change in meaning beyond informal pronunciation/spelling.

Etymology

The word pickin' is the informal verb form of pick, which means 'to pluck' or 'strum' a string. So when someone is pickin' a guitar or banjo, they are casually plucking or strumming the strings.