Verb

(en verb)

To grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails.

Don't pick at that scab.

He picked his nose.

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 pick feathers from a fowl

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

to pick rags

To remove something from 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

* Shakespeare

Did you pick Master Slender's purse?

* Cowper

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

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

I'll pick the one with the nicest name.

(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.

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

He picked a tune on his banjo.

To open (a lock) with a wire, lock pick, etc.

To eat slowly, sparingly, or by morsels; to nibble.

* Dryden

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

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

To steal; to pilfer.

* Book of Common Prayer

to keep my hands from picking and stealing

(obsolete) To throw; to pitch.

* Shakespeare

as high as I could pick my lance

(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.

To separate or open by means of a sharp point or points.

to pick matted wool, cotton, oakum, etc.

Verb

(en-verb)

(label) To take or use time.

# To fill time.

#*

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# To possess or use the time or capacity of; to engage the service of.

# To fill or hold (an official position or role).

# To hold the attention of.

(label) To take or use space.

# To fill space.

# To live or reside in.

#* (Washington Irving) (1783-1859)

The better apartments were already occupied .

#*

With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied ; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get

# (military) To have, or to have taken, possession or control of (a territory).

#* 1940 , in The China monthly review , volumes 94-95, page 370 [http://books.google.com/books?id=QqkTAAAAIAAJ&q=%22occupy+but+cannot+hold%22&dq=%22occupy+but+cannot+hold%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OB6HT4_zC4e68ASF1-jNCA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA]:

The Japanese can occupy but cannot hold, and what they can hold they cannot hold long, was the opinion of General Pai Chung-hsi, Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese Army,

#* 1975 , Esmé Cecil Wingfield-Stratford, King Charles and King Pym, 1637-1643 , page 330 [http://books.google.com/books?ei=ex2HT9-GK5D69gTJqNjdCA&id=VCwqAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22occupied+but+could+not+hold%22&q=%22occupied+but+could%22#search_anchor]:

Rupert, with his usual untamable energy, was scouring the country — but at first in the wrong direction, that of Aylesbury, another keypoint in the outer ring of Oxford defences, which he occupied but could not hold.

#* 1983 , Arthur Keppel-Jones, Rhodes and Rhodesia: The White Conquest of Zimbabwe, 1884-1902 , page 462:

One of the rebel marksmen, who had taken up position on a boulder, was knocked off it by the recoil of his weapon every time he fired. Again the attack achieved nothing. Positions were occupied , but could not be held.

#* 1991 , Werner Spies, John William Gabriel, Max Ernst collages: the invention of the surrealist universe , page 333:

Germany occupied France for three years while France struggled to make payments that were a condition of surrender.

#* 2006 , John Michael Francis, Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History , page 496:

Spain occupied , but could not populate, and its failure to expand Florida led Britain to consider the peninsula a logical extension of its colonial holdings.

# (surveying) To place the theodolite or total station at (a point).

(obsolete) To have sexual intercourse with.Sidney J. Baker, The Australian Language , second edition, 1966.

* 1590s , (William Shakespeare), , II.iv

God's light, these villains will make the word as odious as the word 'occupy ;' which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted

* 1867 , (Robert Nares) A Glossary

OCCUPY, [sensu obsc.] To possess, or enjoy.

*:: These villains will make the word captain, as odious as the word occupy''. ''2 Hen. IV , ii, 4.

*:: Groyne, come of age, his state sold out of hand

*:: For 's whore; Groyne still doth occupy'' his land. ''B. Jons. Epigr. , 117.

*:: Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words, as occupy'', nature, and the like. ''Ibid., Discoveries , vol. vii, p. 119.

It is so used also in Rowley's New Wonder, Anc. Dr., v, 278.

(obsolete) To do business in; to busy oneself with.

* Bible, (w) xxvii. 9

All the ships of the sea, with their mariners, were in thee to occupy the merchandise.

* 1551 , (in Latin), 1516

not able to occupy their old crafts

(obsolete) To use; to expend; to make use of.

* Bible, (w) xxxviii. 24

all the gold that was occupied for the work

* 1551 , (in Latin), 1516

They occupy not money themselves.