pick corners
To find and emphasize minor flaws or faults
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pick of the litter
The best person or thing in a group
pick on someone your own size
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
pick one's battles
Choose which problems to tackle to avoid unnecessary conflict
pick one's nose
to pick one's nose is a rude or impolite habit
pick out
To choose or select something from a group
pick out of a hat
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
pick somebody up
to give someone a lift in a vehicle
pick someone's brain
To ask someone for ideas or advice
pick up on
to notice or become aware of something
pick up one's marbles and go home
To stop participating and leave in a huff
pick up stitches
To resume or continue something that was stopped or left unfinished
pick up the pace
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
pick up the pieces
to recover from a difficult situation
pick up the tab
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
pick up the threads
Resume or reestablish a relationship or activity after a break
pick up what someone is putting down
Understand someone's hint or implication
pick-me-up
A revivifying drink taken after a debauch; a tonic.
pickaninny
A young child is thus styled by the West Indian negroes. The word is now completely naturalized among sailors and water-side people in England.
pickaniny
A young child, an infant. NEGRO TERM.
pickering’s
(F.) Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases which have been supposed to be peculiar to the United States of America, to which is prefixed an Essay on the present state of the English Language in the United States, 8vo. Boston, 1816.
pickers
The hands.—Shakspeare.
pickin' and grinnin'
Playing music and having a good time
picking
Pilfering, petty larceny.
pickle
An arch waggish fellow. In pickle, or in the pickling tub; in a salivation. There are rods in brine, or pickle, for him; a punishment awaits him, or is prepared for him. Pickle herring; the zany or merry andrew of a mountebank. See JACK PUDDING.
pickle
A miserable or comical position; "he is in a sad PICKLE," said of any one who has fallen into the gutter, or got besmeared. "A PICKLE herring," a comical fellow, a merry-andrew.—Old. Also, a mischievous boy; "what a PICKLE he is, to be sure!" Derived from his always getting into a PICKLE, or mess.
pickled
Drunk.
pickles and ice cream
Cravings for unusual food combinations, often during pregnancy
pickles!
Gammon; also a jeering and insulting exclamation.
pickt hatch
To go to the manor of pickt hatch, a cant name for some part of the town noted for bawdy houses in Shakespeare's time, and used by him in that sense.
pickthank
A tale-bearer or mischief maker.
Pickwick accused Mr
Bfotton of acting in "a vile and calumnious marmer," whereupon Mr.
picts' houses
Underground prehistoric dwellings found in the Orkneys and on the east coast of Scotland, and attributed to the Picts.
Picture Bible
A name given to the Bib/fa pauperum fa.v.).
picture frame
The sheriff's picture frame; the gallows or pillory.
picture hat
A woman's hat, with wide drooping brim, such as was worn by many of the sitters to Reynolds and Gainsborough.
piece
A contemptuous term for a woman; a strumpet.—Shakspeare. Not always objectionable nowadays. A "barber’s clerk" does not object to hear his sweetheart or wife called "a nice PIECE;" and gentlemen of the counter-jumping fraternity describe their "young ladies" as "nice PIECES of goods."
piece of ass
a person viewed as a sex object
piece of crap
Something of very poor quality
piece of meat
The penis.
piece of pork
The penis.
piece of shit
Something or someone of extremely poor quality
piece of someone
a part of someone's personality or nature
piece of tail
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
piece of the action
a share of the profits or benefits
piece of the pie
a share of something valuable or desirable
piece of the puzzle
A part that helps to explain or complete a larger situation
piece of work
A person or thing that is unusual or remarkable
Pied Piper of Hamelin
The legend is that the town of Hamelin (Westphalia) was infested with rats in 1284, that a mysterious Piper, clad in a parti-coloured suit, appeared in the town and offered to rid it of the vermin for a certain sum, that the townspeople accepted the offer, the Pied Piper fulfilled his contract, and that then the payment was withheld. On the follow- ing St. John's Day he reappeared, and again played his pipe.
pieman
In tossing, the man who cries is called the PIEMAN. In the old days when the itinerant PIEMAN’S duty was to toss or sell, and his call was, "Hot pies, toss or buy, toss or buy," he was always supposed to be entitled to the cry, the intending eater "skying the copper." An active and efficient police have, however, improved tossing—so far, at all events, as PIEMEN and poor people are concerned—off the face of the earth, and gaming of all descriptions is now a luxury confined to the rich.
Piepowder Court
A court of justice formerly held at fairs, which had summary powers in cases of dispute between those buyers and sellers who were there temporarily. Literally, a "wayfarer's court," piepowder being from Fr. pied-poudreux* dusty-footed (also, a vagabond). The duties of these old Courts of Piepowder are now performed at the Petty Sessions.
pierian spring
A source of knowledge or inspiration
Pierre Lombard
Master of the Sentences, sometimes called the founder of school divinity.
piffy on a rock bun
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
pig
A police officer. A China street pig; a Bow-street officer. Floor the pig and bolt; knock down the officer and run away.
pig
A mass of metal,—so called from its being poured in a fluid state from a SOW, which see.—Workman’s term.
pig and tinder-box
The vulgar rendering of the well-known tavern sign, "Elephant and Castle."
pig in a poke
Something bought or accepted without knowing its true value or nature
pig iron
Iron cast in oblong ingots now called pigs but formerly sows. Sow is now ap- plied to the main channel in which the molten liquid runs, the smaller branches which diverge from it being called pigs, and it is the iron from these which is called pig iron.
pig party
An orgy.