Word.ws English Dictionary

picking and choosing

picking and choosing is the present participle and gerund of pick and choose.

Meaning of pick and choose

Verb

pick and choose (third-person singular simple present picks and chooses, present participle picking and choosing, simple past picked and chose, past participle picked and chosen)

  1. (intransitive) To choose selectively or fastidiously.

Questions about picking and choosing

What is picking and choosing the present participle and gerund of?
Picking and choosing is the present participle and gerund of pick and choose.

Words near picking and choosing in the dictionary

  1. picking
  2. picking a fight
  3. picking a hole in someone's coat
  4. picking a lane
  5. picking a quarrel
  6. picking and choosing
  7. picking and grinning
  8. picking and passing
  9. picking apart
  10. picking at
  11. picking away at

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: picking and choosing (page history and authors); pick and choose (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.

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