Word.ws English Dictionary

picking on

picking on is the present participle and gerund of pick on.

Meaning of pick on

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To bully, harass, or make fun of a victim; to bother or harass.
    • Hey! Quit picking on your brother.
  2. (transitive) To select (a person) for a task, etc.
    • The teacher picked on me to answer the question.

Questions about picking on

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

Words near picking on in the dictionary

  1. picking gooseberry
  2. picking holes
  3. picking it up
  4. picking oakum
  5. picking off
  6. picking on
  7. picking one's battles
  8. picking one's nose
  9. picking one's way
  10. picking oneself up off the floor
  11. picking out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: picking on (page history and authors); pick on (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 on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/picking_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.