picking

/ˈpɪkɪŋ/

picking is the present participle and gerund of pick.

Noun

picking (plural pickings)

A gathering to pick fruit.
- We went to a strawberry picking last June.
(usually pluralized) Items remaining after others have selected the best; scraps, as of food.
- Gilbert wandered through . . .the haunts of ravenous dogs and homeless cats that kept themselves alive on the choice pickings of the city's garbage.1899, F. Marion Crawford, chapter 9, in Via Crucis
Synonyms:

leftovers
(usually pluralized) Income or other gains, especially if obtained in an unscrupulous or objectionable manner.
- easy pickings, rich pickings
- He liked the pickings which the job brought him much better than the job itself.1919, Anthony Hope, chapter 11, in The Secret of the Tower
Something picked or pulled out.
- The schoolboy flicked his nose pickings across the classroom.
The act of making a choice; selection.
The final finishing of woven fabrics by removing burs, etc.
The removal of defects from electrotype plates.
Dabbing in stoneworking.

pick (third-person singular simple present picks, present participle picking, simple past and past participle picked)

To grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails.
- Don't pick at that scab.
To harvest a fruit or vegetable for consumption by removing it from the plant to which it is attached; to harvest an entire plant by removing it from the ground.
- It's time to pick the tomatoes.
To pull apart or away, especially with the fingers; to pluck.
- She picked flowers in the meadow.
To take up; especially, to gather from here and there; to collect; to bring together.
- to pick rags
To remove something from somewhere with a pointed instrument, with the fingers, or with the teeth.
- to pick the teeth; to pick a bone; to pick a goose; to pick a pocket
To decide upon, from a set of options; to select.
- I'll pick the one with the nicest name.

plural	pickings

48 more phrasesFewer phrases

What does picking mean?: Picking means a gathering to pick fruit.
What is picking the present participle and gerund of?: Picking is the present participle and gerund of pick.
What part of speech is picking?: Picking is a noun.
How do you pronounce picking?: Picking is pronounced /ˈpɪkɪŋ/.
What is the plural of picking?: The plural of picking is pickings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: picking (page history and authors); pick (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-picking.wav.

Cite this entry: “picking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/picking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.