Word.ws English Dictionary

picks up the tab

picks up the tab is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pick up the tab.

Meaning of pick up the tab

Verb

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

  1. (US, idiomatic, intransitive) To accept a bill and pay it, especially at a bar or restaurant.
    • When the bill came to just 33,000 forints, I did something very out of character: I picked up the tab. It blew the budget for the day, but felt great.2014 January 30, Seth Kugel, “Wintertime Bargains in Budapest”, in The New York Times

Questions about picks up the tab

What is picks up the tab the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Picks up the tab is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pick up the tab.

Words near picks up the tab in the dictionary

  1. picks up the mantle
  2. picks up the pace
  3. picks up the phone
  4. picks up the pieces
  5. picks up the slack
  6. picks up the tab
  7. picks up the threads
  8. picks up the threads of
  9. picks up what someone is laying down
  10. picks up what someone is putting down
  11. picksies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: picks up the tab (page history and authors); pick up the tab (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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