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Pick vs Sort - What's the difference?

pick | sort |

In obsolete terms the difference between pick and sort

is that pick is to throw; to pitch while sort is a pair; a set; a suit.

As nouns the difference between pick and sort

is that pick is a tool used for digging; a pickaxe while sort is a general type.

As verbs the difference between pick and sort

is that pick is to grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails while sort is (separate according to certain criteria) To separate according to certain criteria.

pick

English

(wikipedia pick)

Noun

(en noun)
  • 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
  • France and Russia have the pick of our stables.
  • 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
  • Take down my buckler and grind the pick on 't.
  • (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.
  • (MacKellar)
  • (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.
  • so many picks to an inch

    Derived terms

    * pickaxe * take one's pick * toothpick

    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.

    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 picking

    See also

    * mattock 1000 English basic words ----

    sort

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) (m), (m), (m) (= Dutch (m), German (m), Danish (m), Swedish (m)), from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A general type.
  • *, chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • *{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers), title=(A Cuckoo in the Nest)
  • , chapter=1 citation , passage=“[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
      Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=17 citation , passage=The face which emerged was not reassuring.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author= Sam Leith
  • , volume=189, issue=1, page=37, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Where the profound meets the profane , passage=Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths.}}
  • Manner; form of being or acting.
  • *(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
  • *:Which for my part I covet to perform, / In sort as through the world I did proclaim.
  • *(Richard Hooker) (1554-1600)
  • *:Flowers, in such sort worn, can neither be smelt nor seen well by those that wear them.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • *:I'll deceive you in another sort .
  • *(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • *:To Adam in what sort / Shall I appear?
  • *(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • *:I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I have copied his style.
  • *
  • *:Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.
  • (lb) Condition above the vulgar; rank.
  • :(Shakespeare)
  • (lb) Group, company.
  • *(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
  • *:a sort of shepherds
  • *(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • *:a sort of doves
  • *(Philip Massinger) (1583-1640)
  • *:a sort of rogues
  • *(George Chapman) (1559-1634)
  • *:A boy, a child, and we a sort of us, / Vowed against his voyage.
  • (lb) A person.
  • :
  • An act of sorting.
  • :
  • (lb) An algorithm for sorting a list of items into a particular sequence.
  • :
  • (lb) A piece of metal type used to print one letter, character, or symbol in a particular size and style.
  • (lb) Chance; lot; destiny.
  • *(William Shakespeare)
  • *:Let blockish Ajax draw / The sort to fight with Hector.
  • (lb) A pair; a set; a suit.
  • :(Johnson)
  • Synonyms
    * (type) genre, genus, kind, type, variety * (person) character, individual, person, type * (act of sorting) sort-out * (in computing) sort algorithm, sorting algorithm * (typography) glyph, type * See also
    Derived terms
    * all sorts * allsorts * in sort * out of sorts * sort of * sort out * sorta * bead sort * binary tree sort * blort sort * bogo-sort * bozo sort * bubble sort * bucket sort * cocktail sort * comb sort * counting sort * distribution sort * drunk man sort * gnome sort * heapsort * insertion sort * in-place sort * insertion sort * introsort * introspective sort * library sort * merge sort * mergesort * monkey sort * pigeonhole sort * quicksort * radix sort * selection sort * shell sort * smoothsort * stochastic sort * stupid sort * stooge sort * timsort

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (senseid)To separate according to certain criteria.
  • * Isaac Newton
  • Rays which differ in refrangibility may be parted and sorted from one another.
  • (senseid)To arrange into some order, especially numerically, alphabetically or chronologically.
  • (senseid)(British) To fix a problem, to handle a task; to sort out.
  • To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insects.
  • * Sir J. Davies
  • She sorts things present with things past.
  • To join or associate with others, especially with others of the same kind or species; to agree.
  • * Woodward
  • Nor do metals only sort and herd with metals in the earth, and minerals with minerals.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • The illiberality of parents towards children makes them base, and sort with any company.
  • To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • They are happy whose natures sort with their vocations.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • I cannot tell ye precisely how they sorted .
  • (obsolete) To conform; to adapt; to accommodate.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience.
  • (obsolete) To choose from a number; to select; to cull.
  • * Chapman
  • that he may sort out a worthy spouse
  • * Shakespeare
  • I'll sort some other time to visit you.
    Usage notes
    In British sense “to fix a problem”, often used in the form “I’ll get you sorted,” or “Now that’s sorted,” – in American usage (sort out) is used instead.
    Synonyms
    * (separate according to certain criteria) categorise/categorize, class, classify, group * (arrange into some sort of order) order, rank
    Derived terms
    * sorted * sorting * sort out

    Statistics

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    Anagrams

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