The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pick \Pick\, n. [F. pic a pickax, a pick. See Pick, and cf. Pike.]
A sharp-pointed tool for picking; -- often used in composition; as, a toothpick; a picklock.
(Mining & Mech.) A heavy iron tool, curved and sometimes pointed at both ends, wielded by means of a wooden handle inserted in the middle, -- used for digging ino the ground by quarrymen, roadmakers, etc.; also, a pointed hammer used for dressing millstones.
A pike or spike; the sharp point fixed in the center of a buckler. [Obs.] ``Take down my buckler . . . and grind the pick on 't.''
--Beau. & Fl.-
Choice; right of selection; as, to have one's pick; in cat breeding, the owner of a stud gets the pick of the litter.
France and Russia have the pick of our stables.
--Ld. Lytton. Hence: That which would be picked or chosen first; the best; as, the pick of the flock.
(Print.) A particle of ink or paper imbedded in the hollow of a letter, filling up its face, and occasioning a spot on a printed sheet.
--MacKellar.(Painting) That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture.
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(Weaving) The blow which drives the shuttle, -- the rate of speed of a loom being reckoned as so many picks per minute; hence, in describing the fineness of a fabric, a weft thread; as, so many picks to an inch.
Pick dressing (Arch.), in cut stonework, a facing made by a pointed tool, leaving the surface in little pits or depressions.
Pick hammer, a pick with one end sharp and the other blunt, used by miners.