Pick vs Poke - What's the difference?
pick | poke |
A tool used for digging; a pickaxe.
A tool for unlocking a lock without the original key; a lock pick, picklock.
A comb with long widely spaced teeth, for use with tightly curled hair.
A choice; ability to choose.
* Lord Lytton
That which would be picked or chosen first; the best.
(basketball) A screen.
(lacrosse) An offensive tactic in which a player stands so as to block a defender from reaching a teammate.
(American football) An interception.
(baseball) A good defensive play by an infielder.
(baseball) A pickoff.
(music) A tool used for strumming the strings of a guitar; a plectrum.
A pointed hammer used for dressing millstones.
(obsolete) A pike or spike; the sharp point fixed in the center of a buckler.
* Beaumont and Fletcher
(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.
(art, painting) That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture.
(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.
To grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails.
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.
To pull apart or away, especially with the fingers; to pluck.
To take up; especially, to gather from here and there; to collect; to bring together.
To remove something from with a pointed instrument, with the fingers, or with the teeth.
* Shakespeare
* Cowper
To decide upon, from a set of options; to select.
(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.
(music) To pluck the individual strings of a musical instrument or to play such an instrument.
To open (a lock) with a wire, lock pick, etc.
To eat slowly, sparingly, or by morsels; to nibble.
* Dryden
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
(obsolete) To throw; to pitch.
* Shakespeare
(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 prod or jab with a pointed object such as a finger or a stick.
* {{quote-news
, year=2010
, date=December 29
, author=Sam Sheringham
, title=Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton
, work=BBC
To poke a fire to remove ash or promote burning.
(figuratively) To rummage as in to poke about in.
(computing) To modify the value stored in (a memory address).
* 1984 , Franco Frey, SPECGRAFFITI'' (in ''Crash magazine, issue 6, July 1984)
* 1985 , Tom Weishaar, Bert Kersey, The DOStalk Scrapbook (page 44)
To put a poke on.
To thrust with the horns; to gore.
(informal, internet) To notify.
(label) To thrust (something) in a particular direction such as the tongue.
(US, slang) A lazy person; a dawdler.
(US, slang) A stupid or uninteresting person.
(US) A device to prevent an animal from leaping or breaking through fences, consisting of a yoke with a pole inserted, pointed forward.
(computing) The storage of a value in a memory address, typically to modify the behaviour of a program or to cheat at a video game.
* 1988 , "Lloyd Mangram", Forum'' (in ''Crash magazine issue 54, July 1988)
* c. 1386 , , The Canterbury Tales'',
* c. 1599 , ,
* 1605 , ,
* 1627 , ,
* 1814 , September 4,
* 1946 , Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues , Payback Press 1999, p. 91:
* 2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, p. 138:
A long, wide sleeve; a poke sleeve.
(Scotland, Northern Ireland) An ice cream cone.
As nouns the difference between pick and poke
is that pick is a tool used for digging; a pickaxe while poke is a lazy person; a dawdler.As verbs the difference between pick and poke
is that pick is to grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails while poke is to prod or jab with a pointed object such as a finger or a stick.pick
English
(wikipedia pick)Noun
(en noun)- France and Russia have the pick of our stables.
- Take down my buckler and grind the pick on 't.
- (MacKellar)
- so many picks to an inch
Derived terms
* pickaxe * take one's pick * toothpickVerb
(en verb)- Don't pick at that scab.
- He picked his nose.
- It's time to pick the tomatoes.
- She picked flowers in the meadow.
- to pick feathers from a fowl
- to pick rags
- to pick''' the teeth; to '''pick''' a bone; to '''pick''' a goose; to '''pick a pocket
- Did you pick Master Slender's purse?
- He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems / With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet.
- I'll pick the one with the nicest name.
- He didn't pick the googly, and was bowled.
- He picked a tune on his banjo.
- Why stand'st thou picking ? Is thy palate sore?
- to keep my hands from picking and stealing
- as high as I could pick my lance
- to pick matted wool, cotton, oakum, etc.
Derived terms
* a bone to pick * picky * pickpocket * nitpick * pick and choose * pick 'em * nose-picking * pick somebody's brain * pick up * pick up on * pick up where one left * pickin' and grinnin' * ripe for the pickingSee also
* mattock 1000 English basic words ----poke
English
Etymology 1
Perhaps from (etyl) poken or (etyl) poken (both from (etyl) ), perhaps imitative.Verb
(pok)citation, page= , passage=Ward showed good pace to beat the advancing Reina to the ball and poke a low finish into the corner.}}
- The 200 UDGs may be used either by paging between 10 sets of 20 UDGs or, alternatively, by displaying 96 different characters by poking the system variable CHARS with 256 less than the starting address of your graphics.
- If you try to poke a value outside this range into a byte, Basic will beep you with an ILLEGAL QUANTITY error.
- to poke an ox
Derived terms
{{der3, poke along , poke bonnet , poke box , poke fun , toepoke}}Noun
(en noun)- (Bartlett)
- Perhaps all those super hackers who so regularly produce infinite lives etc. could produce pokes to be used by 128K users.
Etymology 2
From (etyl) poke, whence pocketNoun
(en noun)''The Miller's Prologue and Tale:
- Gerveys answerde, “Certes, were it gold,
Or in a poke nobles alle untold,
Thou sholdest have, as I am trewe smyth.
As You Like It , act 2, scene 7:
- And then he drew a dial from his poke ,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, ‘It is ten o'clock…’
Remaines Concerning Brittaine'', 1629 edition, ''Proverbes , page 276:
- When the Pig is proffered, hold vp the poke .
Minor Poems of Michael Drayton'', 1907 edition, poem ''Nimphidia :
- And suddainly vntyes the Poke ,
Which out of it sent such a smoke,
As ready was them all to choke,
So greeuous was the pother [...].
The Examiner'', volume 13, number 349, article ''French Fashions , page 573:
- … and as to shape , a nightmare has as much. Under the poke and the muff-box, the face sometimes entirely disappears …
- In the summertime they'd reach out and snatch your straw hat right off your head, and if you were fool enough to go after it your poke was bound to be lighter when you came out.
- She did not eat blood-oranges. Her maw gived her one in a poke and she was going to throw it in the bin, Oh it is all black.