Prick vs Pick - What's the difference?
prick | pick |
A small hole or perforation, caused by piercing.
An indentation or small mark made with a pointed object.
(obsolete) A dot or other diacritical mark used in writing; a point.
(obsolete) A tiny particle; a small amount of something; a jot.
A small pointed object.
* Shakespeare
* Bible, Acts ix. 5
The experience or feeling of being pierced or punctured by a small, sharp object.
* A. Tucker
(slang, vulgar) The penis.
(slang, pejorative) Someone (especially a man or boy) who is unpleasant, rude or annoying.
(now, historical) A small roll of yarn or tobacco.
The footprint of a hare.
(obsolete) A point or mark on the dial, noting the hour.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) The point on a target at which an archer aims; the mark; the pin.
* Spenser
To pierce or puncture slightly.
To form by piercing or puncturing.
(dated) To be punctured; to suffer or feel a sharp pain, as by puncture.
To incite, stimulate, goad.
* (rfdate), (Shakespeare), (Two Gentlemen of Verona) , ii. 7.
To affect with sharp pain; to sting, as with remorse.
* Bible, Acts ii. 37
* Tennyson
(archaic) To urge one's horse on; to ride quickly.
* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.1:
* 1881 , :
(transitive, chiefly, nautical) To mark the surface of (something) with pricks or dots; especially, to trace a ship’s course on (a chart).
(nautical, obsolete) To run a middle seam through the cloth of a sail. (The Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1896)
To make acidic or pungent.
To become sharp or acid; to turn sour, as wine.
To aim at a point or mark.
To fix by the point; to attach or hang by puncturing.
* Sandys
(obsolete) To mark or denote by a puncture; to designate by pricking; to choose; to mark.
* Francis Bacon
* Sir Walter Scott
* Shakespeare
To make sharp; to erect into a point; to raise, as something pointed; said especially of the ears of an animal, such as a horse or dog; and usually followed by up .
* Dryden
(obsolete) To dress; to prink; usually with up .
(farriery) To drive a nail into (a horse's foot), so as to cause lameness.
(Webster 1913)
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.
In obsolete terms the difference between prick and pick
is that prick is to dress; to prink; usually with up while pick is to throw; to pitch.As nouns the difference between prick and pick
is that prick is a small hole or perforation, caused by piercing while pick is a tool used for digging; a pickaxe.As verbs the difference between prick and pick
is that prick is to pierce or puncture slightly while pick is to grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails.prick
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) prik, prikke, from (etyl) prica, . Pejorative context came from prickers, or witch-hunters.Noun
(en noun)- Pins, wooden pricks , nails, sprigs of rosemary.
- It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks .
- I felt a sharp prick as the nurse took a sample of blood.
- the pricks of conscience
- the prick of noon
- they that shooten nearest the prick
Derived terms
* pricker * prickle * prickly * pricktease * prickteaserEtymology 2
From (etyl) .Verb
(en verb)- John hardly felt the needle prick his arm when the adept nurse drew blood.
- to prick holes in paper
- to prick a pattern for embroidery
- to prick the notes of a musical composition
- (Cowper)
- A sore finger pricks .
- My duty pricks me on to utter that.
- Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.
- I was pricked with some reproof.
- (Milton)
- At last, as through an open plaine they yode, / They spide a knight that towards them pricked fayre [...].
- Indeed, it is a memorable subject for consideration, with what unconcern and gaiety mankind pricks on along the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
- (Hudibras)
- (Hawkins)
- to prick a knife into a board
- The cooks prick it [a slice] on a prong of iron.
- (Isaac Newton)
- Some who are pricked for sheriffs.
- Let the soldiers for duty be carefully pricked off.
- Those many, then, shall die: their names are pricked .
- The courser pricks up his ears.
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.