different between pick vs engage

English

Etymology

From Middle English piken, picken, pikken, from Old English *piccian, *p?cian (attested in p?cung (“a pricking”)), and p?can (“to pick, prick, pluck”), both from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n?, *p?kijan? (“to pick, peck, prick, knock”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew-, *bu- (“to make a dull, hollow sound”). Cognate with Dutch pikken (“to pick”), German picken (“to pick, peck”), Old Norse pikka, pjakka (whence Icelandic pikka (“to pick, prick”), Swedish picka (“to pick, peck”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?k/, [p??k]
• Homophone: pic
• Rhymes: -?k

Noun

pick (plural picks)

1. A tool used for digging; a pickaxe.
2. A tool for unlocking a lock without the original key; a lock pick, picklock.
3. A comb with long widely spaced teeth, for use with tightly curled hair.
4. A choice; ability to choose.
   • 1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do With It?

     France and Russia have the pick of our stables.

5. That which would be picked or chosen first; the best.
6. (basketball) A screen.
7. (lacrosse) An offensive tactic in which a player stands so as to block a defender from reaching a teammate.
8. (American football) An interception.
9. (baseball) A good defensive play by an infielder.
10. (baseball) A pickoff.
11. (music) A tool used for strumming the strings of a guitar; a plectrum.
12. A pointed hammer used for dressing millstones.
13. (obsolete) A pike or spike; the sharp point fixed in the center of a buckler.

    • Take down my buckler […] and grind the pick on 't.

14. (printing, dated) A particle of ink or paper embedded in the hollow of a letter, filling up its face, and causing a spot on a printed sheet.
    • c. 1866, Thomas MacKellar, The American Printer

      If it be in the smallest degree gritty, it clogs the form, and consequently produces a thick and imperfect impression; no pains should, therefore, be spared to render it perfectly smooth; it may then be made to work as clear and free from picks

15. (art, painting) That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture.
16. (weaving) The blow that drives the shuttle, used in calculating the speed of a loom (in picks per minute); hence, in describing the fineness of a fabric, a weft thread.

Derived terms

• pickaxe
• take one's pick
• toothpick

Translations

Verb

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

1. To grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails.

   Don't pick at that scab.

   He picked his nose.

3. 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.

4. To pull apart or away, especially with the fingers; to pluck.

   She picked flowers in the meadow.

   to pick feathers from a fowl

5. To take up; especially, to gather from here and there; to collect; to bring together.

   to pick rags

6. 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

   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task

     He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems / With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet.

   • 1867, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist Chapter 43

     He was charged with attempting to pick a pocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him,--his own, my dear, his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it.

7. To decide upon, from a set of options; to select.

   I'll pick the one with the nicest name.

8. (transitive) To seek (a fight or quarrel) where the opportunity arises.
9. (cricket) To recognise the type of ball being bowled by a bowler by studying the position of the hand and arm as the ball is released.

   He didn't pick the googly, and was bowled.

10. (music) To pluck the individual strings of a musical instrument or to play such an instrument.

    He picked a tune on his banjo.

11. To open (a lock) with a wire, lock pick, etc.
12. To eat slowly, sparingly, or by morsels; to nibble.
    • 1693, John Dryden, Third Satire of Persius

      Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore?

13. To do anything fastidiously or carefully, or by attending to small things; to select something with care.

    I gingerly picked my way between the thorny shrubs.

14. To steal; to pilfer.
    • Book of Common Prayer

      to keep my hands from picking and stealing

15. (obsolete) To throw; to pitch.
16. (dated) To peck at, as a bird with its beak; to strike at with anything pointed; to act upon with a pointed instrument; to pierce; to prick, as with a pin.
17. (transitive, intransitive) To separate or open by means of a sharp point or points.

    to pick matted wool, cotton, oakum, etc.

    • 1912, Victor Whitechurch, Thrilling Stories of the Railway

      Naphtha lamps shed a weird light over a busy scene, for the work was being continued night and day. A score or so of sturdy navvies were shovelling and picking along the track.

18. (basketball) To screen.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• mattock

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Verb

pick

1. singular imperative of picken
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of picken

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English pyke, from Old English p?c.

Noun

pick (plural pickkès)

1. a pike

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN

English

Alternative forms

• ingage (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English engagen, from Old French engagier (“to pledge, engage”), from Frankish *anwadj?n (“to pledge”), from Proto-Germanic *an-, *andi- + Proto-Germanic *wadj?n? (“to pledge, secure”), from Proto-Germanic *wadj? (“pledge, guarantee”), from Proto-Indo-European *wed?- (“to pledge, redeem a pledge; guarantee, bail”), equivalent to en- +? gage. Cognate with Old English anwedd (“pledge, security”), Old English weddian (“to engage, covenant, undertake”), German wetten (“to bet, wager”), Icelandic veðja (“to wager”). More at wed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n??e?d?/, /?n??e?d?/
• Rhymes: -e?d?

Verb

engage (third-person singular simple present engages, present participle engaging, simple past and past participle engaged)

1. (heading, transitive) To interact socially.
   1. To engross or hold the attention of; to keep busy or occupied.
   2. To draw into conversation.

      • the difficult task of engaging him in conversation

   3. To attract, to please; (archaic) to fascinate or win over (someone).

      • Good nature engages everybody to him.

2. (heading) To interact antagonistically.
   1. (transitive) To enter into conflict with (an enemy).
      • 1698-1699, Edmund Ludlow, Memoirs

        a favourable opportunity of engaging the enemy

   2. (intransitive) To enter into battle.
3. (heading) To interact contractually.
   1. (transitive) To arrange to employ or use (a worker, a space, etc.).
   2. (intransitive) To guarantee or promise (to do something).
   3. (transitive) To bind through legal or moral obligation (to do something, especially to marry) (usually in passive).

   4. (obsolete, transitive) To pledge, pawn (one's property); to put (something) at risk or on the line; to mortgage (houses, land).
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vii:

        Thou that doest liue in later times, must wage / Thy workes for wealth, and life for gold engage.

4. (heading) To interact mechanically.
   1. To mesh or interlock (of machinery, especially a clutch).
   2. (engineering, transitive) To come into gear with.

      The teeth of one cogwheel engage those of another.

5. (intransitive) To enter into (an activity), to participate (construed with in).

   • “ […] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic? […]”

6. (transitive, obsolete) To entangle.

Antonyms

• (to cause to mesh or interlock): disengage

Derived terms

• engagement
• disengage
• disengagement

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.?a?/

Verb

engage

1. first-person singular present indicative of engager
2. third-person singular present indicative of engager
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of engager
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of engager
5. second-person singular imperative of engager

Anagrams

• gagnée