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Pick up   /pɪk əp/   Listen
Pick up

verb
1.
Take and lift upward.  Synonyms: gather up, lift up.
2.
Take up by hand.
3.
Give a passenger or a hitchhiker a lift.
4.
Gather or collect.  Synonyms: call for, collect, gather up.  "She picked up the children at the day care center" , "They pick up our trash twice a week"
5.
Get to know or become aware of, usually accidentally.  Synonyms: discover, find out, get a line, get wind, get word, hear, learn, see.  "I see that you have been promoted"
6.
Get in addition, as an increase.
7.
Take into custody.  Synonyms: apprehend, arrest, collar, cop, nab, nail.
8.
Buy casually or spontaneously.
9.
Register (perceptual input).  Synonym: receive.
10.
Lift out or reflect from a background.  "His eyes picked up his smile"
11.
Meet someone for sexual purposes.
12.
Fill with high spirits; fill with optimism.  Synonyms: elate, intoxicate, lift up, uplift.
13.
Improve significantly; go from bad to good.  Synonym: turn around.
14.
Perceive with the senses quickly, suddenly, or momentarily.  Synonym: catch.  "He caught the allusion in her glance" , "Ears open to catch every sound" , "The dog picked up the scent" , "Catch a glimpse"
15.
Eat by pecking at, like a bird.  Synonym: peck.
16.
Gain or regain energy.  Synonyms: gain vigor, percolate, perk, perk up.



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"Pick up" Quotes from Famous Books



... those days, a fine old fellow, who, when the danger was at its height, went fearlessly from house to house. He had white hair, rosy cheeks, and a slim, erect figure, and was always cracking jokes with us. He used to say: "No funk, no risk of Death!" and would pick up the beautiful golden melons before our eyes and eat them with the best appetite in the world, and he took no harm from them, for he feared no danger. You had only to live regularly and trust in God, he used to say. He would laugh when we asked him: "Is it true ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... up his mind as to what he should do, Captain Hamelin had the good luck to pick up an open boat containing Boullanger, one of the scientific staff of Le Geographe, a lieutenant, and eight sailors. They were absent from the ship when the storm burst, and Baudin had sailed away without them. His conduct on this occasion had ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... a scraper of odds and ends. I pick up things in the gutter. Mind you, those Jews ain't such fools, though a curse is on 'em, to wander forth. They know the meaning of the multiplication table. They can turn fractions into whole numbers. No; I'm not to be compared to gentlemen. My property's my ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... if they had been transported to Paradise after the terrible experiences of the past winter, with a mere shed for shelter, the coal running short at too frequent intervals, and meat only compassed as a rare luxury on the "lucky" days when one or the other could pick up an extra nickel, or two, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... that the steam-engine is a very wasteful machine, because so little of the energy is brought into actual operation. I am afraid that there are a great many of us Christian people like that, getting so much capacity, and turning out so little work. And there are a great many more of us who simply pick up the kind of work that is popular round us, and never consult our own bent, nor follow this humbly and bravely, wherever it will take us. 'She ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... of that house. So he leapt on his horse and rode up the slope into the garth and lighted down by Clement; who fell to chiding him for tarrying, and said: "There is peril in loitering outside this garth alone; for those Sons of the Rope often lurk hard by for what they may easily pick up, and they be brisk and nimble lads." "What ailed thee?" said Ralph. "I stayed to look at a flower which called ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... themselves, firing two or three hundred more shots, and covering the yellow cartridge-shells of the Mauser rifles with a silvery layer of empty tubes from the Krag-Jorgensens. It looked as if one might pick up a bushel or two of these shells in an area ten or fifteen ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... nephew of a Minister, and himself secretary to the Ambassador of his country in London, had met with his death in a still more mysterious, still more amazing fashion. He had left the hotel in an ordinary taxicab, which had stopped on the way to pick up no other passenger. He had left the Savoy alone, and he was discovered in Melbourne Square alone. Yet, somewhere between these two points, notwithstanding the fact that the aggressor must have entered the cab either with or without his consent, Mr. Richard Vanderpole, ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... artillery strove to pick up the plan of the attack, to beat down the torrent of our batteries' fire, to smash in the forward trenches, shake the defense, open the way for the massed attack. But the contest was too unequal, the devastation amongst the crowded mass of German infantry too ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... Where did you pick up such sound views, Drysdale? But you're not examiner yet; and, on the whole, I must rub up my history somehow. I wish I knew ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... from within. I have him! I have him! Curse your claws! Why do you fix them on me, you crab? You won't pick up the fiend-spawn so easily, I can tell you. Bring the light there, will you? (One runs out for the light.) A trap! a trap! and a stair, down in the wall! The hell-faggot's gone! After ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... recruits wait," said Astok. "Or, better still, come you to Dusar upon the Thuria, leaving the Kalksus to follow and pick up ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... on hers, a sear, dismal heath, whereupon were marshalled, in irregular array, a few miserable, brown furze bushes; amongst which, a meagre, shaggy ass, more miserable still, with his hind legs logged and chained, was endeavouring to pick up a scanty subsistence. What the road of the other day could have been, it surpassed even my capacity, with this specimen of "the bootiful" before me, to surmise; but my companion was evidently one of those enviable individuals, whose ignorance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various

... or answer my turn. I should like all the people in the world to be as beautiful as angels, and go about crowned with glory and clothed with light (dear me, how very different they are!); but failing all that I should like in the way of enormously beautiful things, I pick up and treasure like a baby all the little broken bits of splendor and sumptuousness, and thank Heaven that their number and gradations are infinite, from the rainbow that the sun spans the heavens with, to the fine, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... fish stopped biting, as they 'most always do, by spells, and the Deep Woods people leaned back and looked out over the Wide Blue Water, and away out there saw Mr. Eagle swoop down and pick up something which looked at first like a shoe-string; then they saw it wriggle, and knew it was a small water-snake, which was going to be Mr. Eagle's dinner; and they talked about it and wondered how he could enjoy ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine

... continued,—"ye'll not make me pick up the four of 'em, and pack it to Louisiana, because Mr. Colfax wants the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... reason why I should not tell you a little more about him. I have always felt exceedingly sorry for his determined exile, and the isolation from all his old friends and old delights. I know that he dearly loved Devon, and one feels it is time now that he came back to try and pick up the threads. You and your husband appear to be his only friends, and as a distant connection you might be able to approach him upon a subject where a stranger, or shall we say a forgotten friend, would be diffident." He paused, then added, "I wonder if he has the remotest idea ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... Forerunner on our club table far too exciting to pick up and skim. Therefore I enclose a ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... so and keep the stuff in your trunk while we are playing these country towns. When we get into the cities, where they have restaurants, you can get a lunch downtown after you have finished your act and then be back in time to go out with the wagons," Mr. Miaco informed them. "You'll pick up these little tricks as we go along, and it won't be long before you are full-fledged showmen. You are pretty near that ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... its decrees; and at one time a punctilious resident complained that 'there was not even a common hangman, nor a jail, nor even a tormentor to rack the criminals or inflict other appropriate tortures.' But appeals took a long time and cost much money; so even the officials of the bailiwick could pick up a living by threats of the law's delay, on the one hand, and promises of perverted local justice, on the other. That there was money to be made, in spite of the meagre salaries, is proved by the fact that the best journeyman wig-maker ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood

... went on board the hospital ship Portugal. A Baroness Meyendorff, cousin of our Meyendorff, was found to be matron-in-chief, and she took us all over the vessel, which was to proceed during the night to pick up wounded at Off, the advanced base of the force which was moving on Trebizond and which we were to visit next day. In the afternoon we had a fine run along an excellently engineered road up the Tchorok valley, a deep ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... that it must move or be destroyed, Katonah gathered its residents together, and decided that rather than be wiped off the face of the map, it would pick up ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 16, February 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... circular marks, much as if some jars had been set down there. We were watching him, almost in awe at the matter of fact manner in which, he was proceeding in what to us was nothing but a hopeless enigma, when I saw him stoop and pick up a few little broken pieces of glass. There seemed to be blood spots on the glass, as on other things, but particularly interesting ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... innocent child believed her, and ran forward to pick up the crucifix, looking in every direction around for the wolf; but the others, who were wiser, saw full well that the wolf had been none other than Sidonia herself, for her lips were bloody, and round them, like a beard, were sticking small black threads, which ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... hand, with all the forms of margin, paragraph, marked page, and the like; then on Sunday morning he took care to run it over five or six times, which he could do in an hour; and when he deliver'd it, by pretending to turn his face from one side to the other, he would (in his own expression) pick up the lines, and cheat his people by making them believe he had it all by heart. He farther added, that whenever he happened by neglect to omit any of these circumstances, the vogue of the parish was, "Our doctor gave us but an indifferent ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... of Prussians which have taken this direction and which may have stopped at Wavre, where you ought to arrive as soon as possible." Grouchy, however, was not to neglect Bluecher's troops that were on his right, but must pick up their stragglers and keep up ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... tusks, or gives it a blow underneath with his head. Sometimes the animal is not content with the canoes, but attacks the men, and many too daring hunters have lost their lives in this way. When the hippopotamus has been sufficiently tired out, the hunters pick up the float, and take the line ashore to wind it round a tree, and then they pull with all their might to draw the creature ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... your Shakspeare—and no dramatist should despise the works of another dramatist; he may always pick up something in them which may be useful for his next play—if you ever read your Shakspeare, it is possible that you have come ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various

... bringing the news with it, and stops to discuss it on the steps or the benches or by the fountain; and the acoustics are admirable. With a window open and scratch-pad handy, the keen-eared scribe at his desk in our offices can hardly fail to pick up every scrap of town information between sunrise and dusk.... Of course, in winter the supply's not so good. Winter before last we all suffered with colds acquired through keeping the windows open; and last winter ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... father broke up the ground with his plough, and scattered in the seed-corn, the crows were watching from the old apple-tree, and they came down to pick up the corn; and, indeed, they did carry away a good deal. But the days went by, the spring showers moistened the earth, and the sun shone; and so the seed-corn swelled, and, bursting open, thrust out two little hands, ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews

... the darkness is just full of wings—soft and soft; you're afraid to put up your hand in case you might hurt some poor creature at the end of its long voyage; and you listen and listen as you walk along, waiting for the gray daylight in the east, to show them where to pick up some food in the fields. Ah! Miss, if you only had the courage to rise as early ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... again upon the second day and a wide, open plain let the full heat of Kudu flood the chilled, brown body, Tarzan's spirits rose; but it was still a sullen, surly brute that moved steadily onward into the south where he hoped again to pick up the trail of the Germans. He was now in German East Africa and it was his intention to skirt the mountains west of Kilimanjaro, whose rugged peaks he was quite willing to give a wide berth, and then swing eastward along the south side of the range to the railway that led to Tanga, for ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... walk, regarded the floor in front of him critically, and stooped to pick up a tiny scrap of paper, which he brought to the table and laid ceremoniously in ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... this younger generation is havin' a heap harder time than the old folks did. Their disbehavior and the way they carry theirselves now'days. So many of 'em will pick up things don't belong ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... scarcely at all, and all they read is the weak and shallow prose of popular fiction and the daily press. That is knowing a language within the meaning of their minds, and such a knowledge a child may very well be left to "pick up" as it may. Side by side with this they will presently set themselves to erect a similar "knowledge" of two or three other languages. One is constantly meeting not only women but men who will solemnly ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... old "honest miner" lingered behind to pick up the baleful pipe which he knew was somewhere there; and when the little party was far enough down the hill, he took it up and buried it in his own capacious pocket with a half-sorrowful laugh. ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... secretary, stooping to pick up his newspaper and lavender glove—he wore one glove and carried the other—the collision had sent flying. But the man was already far beyond the reach of his voice. 'He must be an escaped lamplighter, or something,' he laughed ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... will go back a few years and pick up a little experience that was scattered along the road. In 1861 I took my family around the bay for an outing in a private carriage. We went through San Mateo, Redwood City, Santa Clara, San Jose, Hot Springs, Hayward, San Leandro, Oakland and back to San Francisco by boat. We enjoyed the trip very ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley

... Jericho Road. It might be a highway here in Algonquin, the future was all unquestioned, but wherever it was the Vision would stand by him as He had stood in that hour of despair. And how glorious to think he might pick up a Peter from the dirt and help to restore him ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... perhaps find in them the true spirit of the nineteenth century. Advertisements, more prosaic than his, however, bring us into the very heart of life and business, and contain a world of interest. Suppose that the dirty broadside you pick up in the dingy inn's soiled room contains the annual announcement of the reassembling of the school in which you spent your own years of schoolboy life—what a mingled and many-figured romance does it recall ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... Place them in your left hand. Then with your right hand pick up one pebble, hold it at arm's length and concentrate your mind thereupon without allowing other thoughts for full 60 seconds. So with all the pebbles. Then start picking up with left hand. Do this ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... have all the courage of their opinion, and it is easy to see how well they know they can confound you with an unanswerable question. What is the whole place but a curiosity-shop, and what are you here for yourself but to pick up odds and ends? "We pick them up for you," say these honest Jews, whose prices are marked in dollars, "and who shall blame us if, the flowers being pretty well plucked, we add an artificial rose or two to the composition of the bouquet?" They take care, in a word, that ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... destroy a bigger quarry. It needs the same amount of patience and the same vigilance. Days may pass without the opportunity, and that will only be a fleeting one: the psychological moment must be seized and it will not brook a moment's delay. The eye must be trained to pick up the minutest detail, and must be capable of doing this for hour after hour. For those on submarine patrol in a small ship there is not one second's rest. As is well known, the submarine campaign reached ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... Chetwode appeared, she blamed the porter and the guard, and asked to see the station-master. He was very charmed with her, but could only patiently repeat that there was not another train that day from the remote little village where Chetwode had gone from Newmarket to pick up ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... way and now this, making all manner of loops upon his path, of course he will be left hopelessly in the rear. It is the old fable of the Grecian mythology transplanted into Christian soil. The runner who turned aside to pick up the golden apple was disappointed of his hopes of the radiant fair. The ship, at the helm of which is a steersman who has either a feeble hand or does not understand his business, and which therefore keeps yawing from side to side, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... El-Malk, is a broken parallelogram. Further down stream the bank is a vast strew of broken pottery; and one place, covered with glass fragments, was named by our soldiers El-Khammrah—"the tavern" or "the hotel." As in ancient Etruria, so here, the people assemble after heavy rains to pick up what luck throws in the way. It is said that they often gather gold pieces, square as well as round, bearing by way of inscription "prayers" to the Apostle of Allah. Some of us, however, had a shrewd suspicion that ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... one or the other for some particular excellence of morality or binding. Having distributed a portion through the car, he passes into the next car, and so through the train. After a few minutes delay he returns again to pick up the books and to settle with any one who may be disposed to retain possession of one. After the lapse of a very short time he reappears with the second course of literature. This usually consists of a much lower ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... by those wide-open doors, waving about the figures on the tapestry till they too seemed to mourn and lament with wildly tossing arms the horror of the scene—the cries and clash of arms as the caterans fled, pausing no doubt to pick up what scattered jewels or rich garments might lie in their way: and by the wild illumination of a torch, or the wavering leaping flame of the faggot on the hearth, the two wounded ladies, each with an anxious ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... who was always sneaking around, trying to pick up information that did not rightly belong ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer

... when he had seen our man safely lodged in the Black Swan after his day's perambulations. "And if he shouldn't go out at all?" suggested the lad. "In that case you must stick to your post till nightfall, and pick up all the information you can about my unfortunate nephew from the hangers-on of the hotel," said I. "I suppose you know some one at the Black Swan?" The boy informed me, in his untutored language, that he knew "a'most all ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... surprised; he had perhaps little expected to meet with so spirited an opposition to his will. "Where, Edward in the name of wonder (said he) did you pick up this unmeaning gibberish? You have been studying Novels I suspect." I scorned to answer: it would have been beneath my dignity. I mounted my Horse and followed by my faithful William ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... first place, I found her nothing extraordinary, and then, you pick up the like of her as often as you please, for, in fact, she ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... lay on the floor, and his challenge was for anyone to pick it up with bare hands. I noticed that it required unusually long fingers to grasp it, since one could get only the thumb on one side. Though thousands tried, I never saw, or heard, of anyone else who could juggle his anvil or pick up the weight. True, I saw him surreptitiously rub his fingers with resin, to assist in the gripping, but that could have been only of slight assistance to the marvelous grip the ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... and they eat some coarse grain instead. A lady who made a feast for the poor provided nothing but rice, and she found that it was thought as good as roast beef and plum pudding are thought in England. The day after the feast some of the poor creatures came to pick up the grains of rice that were fallen upon ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... that I know nothing about it. And I didn't pick up much from the work we had here while you were away. With all credit to the Lieutenant, he does not know the practical side of geological surveying, and while he interested us all, he did not give us the real stuff that we shall ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler

... Glenmoriston at first fled with their cattle, but afterwards a number of them came in and made the appearance of submission. The party then moved on towards Strathglass, while Evan Roy respectfully followed, to pick up any man or piece of baggage that might be left behind. At Erchless Castle, and at Invercannich, seats of the Chisholm, they held courts, and received the submission of a number of the tenants, whom, however, they subsequently found to be ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... soundings permitted of his doing so. We saw quantities of seal and white fish along the shore, but we had not time to go after them; all we wanted now was to get south, and in the first place to pick up the bear. When we came near the place where we expected to find it, we did see a large white heap resembling a bear lying on the ground, and I was sure it must be the dead one, but Henriksen maintained that it was not. We went ashore and approached it, as it lay motionless on a grassy ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... Norah, as she set down the box with a thump. She stooped once more to pick up something which had fallen out when the cover was jarred open. It was a pink papier-mache angel, such as are often hung from the top of Christmas trees as a crowning symbol. Norah stood holding it between thumb and finger, staring amazedly. Who would think to find such a bit of frivolity in the ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown

... kind are also got by diving. The women whose duty it is to collect these, go into the water with small nets (len-ko) hung round their necks, and diving to the bottom pick up as many as they can, put them into their bags, and rise to the surface for fresh air, repeating the operation until their bags have been filled. They have the power of remaining for a long time under the water, and when they rise to the surface for air, the head and sometimes the mouth only is exposed. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... man without heart, if he had no devoted friend near him," said Modeste, to pick up the conversation ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... "Go and pick up one of the young men," he said. "There are plenty of them who will be glad to spend the evening with Miss Strong. As for me, it's out of the question. I should only ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... was out. A long waved line of sea-shells and drift-wood marked the place to which it had risen the last time before it began to recede. They were unconsciously following this line of ocean debris. Occasionally Marie would stop to pick up a spotted shell which was more pretty than the rest. Finally, when they had gotten as far north as the semi-circular drive-way which extends around the southern and eastern sides of the walled-city, or Old Manila, as it is called, and had begun to veer toward it, Marie ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey

... Warsaw, Jena, Oxford, Milan, The Sorbonne and even at Heidelberg, the jolly old place. You see my scar?" He pulled back a lock of his wavy black hair from the left temple to show a cut from a student duelist's sword. "But you Americans—I mean, we Americans—we have such opportunities to pick up the best things from the rest of ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... been gradually sinking into disuse for a quarter of a century. When called upon to send an army into the field, we find that more than half of its members have never fired a gun, and even of those who have, not one in a hundred has had any instruction beyond what he has been able to pick up for himself, while popping at robins and squirrels with a ten-dollar Birmingham shot-gun; and every account we receive of a skirmish with the enemy elicits exclamations of astonishment that so few are hurt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... you a pointer on Doc," the big fellow continued. "If ye tuk a peaner to th' top av a mountain an' let her go down the side sorter ez she pleases, 'e c'u'd pick up the remains an' put thim together so's ye w'u'dn't know they'd been apart. Yes, sir; that's no song an' dance, an' 'e c'u'd play any chune iver invented ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... an easily laden ship," said she, "for you take in with you no great store of goods for traffic. But I suppose you design to pick up your cargo among the islands where you cruise, and at a less cost, perchance, than it ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... as I can learn now there are very few gins able to work[67] in the department. I have some very good seed here and at Pine Grove which I think I can gin on the spot. Mr. S.[68] came and spent a night here. He came to hire some men to go with him to pick up a lot of stray timber on commission for the Government. So my plans for ginning cotton here are postponed for a while. I had flattered myself that we were fairly rid of him, and the men were beginning to take an interest in plantation ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... am I. I tell you she's devoted. Did you ever pick up a lost dog? Well, she has the lost dog's love for me. And I for her; we picked each other up. I've never felt for another woman what I feel for her—she's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... 15, Cartier, disappointed, as we have seen, with the rugged country that he found on the northern shore, turned south again to pick up the mainland, as he called it, of Newfoundland. Sailing south from Brest to a distance of about sixty miles, he found himself on the same day off Point Rich on the west coast of Newfoundland, to which, from its appearance, ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock

... I think Allingham himself, told me, in the early days of our acquaintance, how in remote Ballyshannon, where he was a clerk in the Customs, in evening walks he would hear the Irish girls at their cottage doors singing old ballads, which he would pick up. If they were broken or incomplete, he would add to them or finish them; if they were improper he would refine them. He could not get them sung till he got the Dublin Catnach of that day to print them, on long strips of blue paper, like old songs, and if ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... madam, remains in my memory, associated elusively with some hint of seriousness. Will you pardon me a moment?' and a vague thought that I had seen the castle mentioned either in a newspaper, or a clipping from one, caused me to pick up the latest bunch which had come from my agent. I am imbued with no vanity at all; still it is amusing to note what the newspapers say of one, and therefore I have subscribed to a clipping agency. In fact, I indulge in two subscriptions—one personal; the other calling for any pronouncement pertaining ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... found some whose originality and real spiritual worth is not generally recognised, and instead of turning away from their "visions" and "revelations," we should rather examine them with close attention. Even if our faith gains nothing, we shall be sure to pick up psychological treasures which could be turned ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot

... recently made. Unfortunately for Andy, this young fellow, who was named Morton, had a strong liking for practical jokes, and after Andy, with his usual boastfulness, had thrown out sly hints about knowing how to "pick up all the money that he wanted," Morton scented a chance ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... else. He would have attacked us last winter if he had found an opportunity and a chance of success. One of his band was killed, which taught him that we were on the watch, and he failed in that attempt: he managed, however, to pick up the boy when he was lagging behind us, at the time you were wounded by the painter, and carried him off, and he intends to drive a bargain for his being restored to us. That ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... convenient for us, for though a twenty-foot pole, measuring twelve inches at the butt is not the sort of thing that a thief would pick up and run away with, it was less likely that he would attempt it from an enclosed back yard than if the poles were stored in an open lot. Besides this, a stable rent-free for our mules, and a loft above it rent-free for ourselves to sleep in was a ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... on detergents, suggested we make black plastic discs, like poker chips but thinner and as cheap as possible, to scatter on a snowy sidewalk where they would pick up extra heat from the sun and melt the snow more rapidly. Afterward one would sweep up and ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee

... Mrs. Lathrop, that is how it was, an' Mrs. Macy says it's really so, for she see the tombstones all but the mother's—hers ain't done yet. Seems the idiocy come from the great-grandfather's stoppin' on the train crossin' to pick up a frog 'cause he was runnin' for suthin' in connection with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner

... besides the elephants, I was much struck by the number and tameness of the ravens of Ceylon. In every small town and village may be seen multitudes of these birds, that come up to the very doors and windows and pick up everything. They play the part of scavengers here, just as dogs do in Turkey. The horned cattle are rather small, with humps between the shoulder-blades; these humps consist of flesh and are considered a ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... beggar. He also guessed that he would have to wait thus until evening, or even longer. Consequently his blood began to boil in the first moments; he was suddenly seized with the desire to dismount, pick up one of the rocks which lay near the moat, and cast it at the grate. He and every other Mazovian or Polish knight would have done so, under other circumstances, and let them come then from behind the gate and fight him. But ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... me in the field, they put me and Viney to pick up brush and pile it, to pick up stumps, and when we got through with that, she worked on her mother's row and I worked on my aunt's row until we got large enough to have a row to ourselves. Me and Viney were the smallest children in the field and we had one row each. Some of the older people ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... c.c. pipette from the case, pick up a sterile rubber washer with forceps and push the point of the pipette into the ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... station, but had recently obtained information that war had been declared between England and the States. She was now making her way to the west by a circuitous route to avoid the British squadron, and, at the same time, with a view to pick up an English ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... any time," said Campion, tugging thoughtfully at his black beard, "you might look into what the Germans are doing with regard to Female Rescue Work. You might pick up a practical tip or ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... thenceforth an inmate of this household he remained an alien to her clan. "If he proved lazy and failed to do his share of the providing, woe be to him. No matter how many children, or whatever goods he might have in the house, he might at any time be ordered to pick up his blanket and budge; and after such orders it would not be healthful for him to disobey; the house would be too hot for him; and unless saved by the intercession of some aunt or grandmother [of his wife] he must retreat to his own clan, or, as was often done, go and start a new ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... was left of one of our boats under the lee of a large English ironclad. There were two men with me; the three of us began to yell. A man on the ship sings out, 'Can you climb on board if we throw you a rope?' They weren't going to let down a fine new man-of-war's boat to pick up three half-drowned rats. We accepted the invitation. We climbed—I, the engineer, and the ship's boy. About half an hour later the fog cleared entirely; except for the half of the boat away in the offing, there was neither stick nor string on the sea ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... helped pick up Jack tar, and he was taken to the hospital, where his wounds were found to be of a dangerous nature. His assailants were so badly hurt that they went to the hospital, and when they came out they were shifted to the penitentiary, where they're likely to stay for a good many ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... is full up with contracts for the next three years; so I'm going to Norway or Sweden or Denmark, or some non-belligerent European country, and see whether I can't place some contracts there for a couple of real freighters. Then, too, I may be able to pick up good vessels over there at a reasonable price. Under the Emergency Shipping Act we can get them provisional American registry—and that's all we need. Before a great while Uncle Sam is going to turn his ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... with the Toulon squadron that we are immediately concerned, as it alone for the present touches the fortunes of Nelson. Villeneuve's orders were to make the best of his way to the Straits of Gibraltar, evading the British fleet, but calling off Cartagena, to pick up any Spanish ships there that might be perfectly ready to join him. He was not, however, to delay for them on any account, but to push on at once to Cadiz. This port he was not to enter, but to anchor outside, and there be joined ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... will suggest what measures I took next. I went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George's house, managed to pick up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that his master had cut his head the night before, and, finally, at the expense of six shillings, made all sure by buying a pair of his cast-off shoes. With these I journeyed down ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... made towards South Omaha. We were not far behind, but our way was blocked by the debris the tornado had thrown on the tracks. Then, too, we stopped frequently to pick up the injured. There were some with their limbs torn off and all were ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... class are slow in learning English. After months, and even years sometimes, their knowledge is limited to a few words or phrases. On the other hand, they pick up French readily, and as many of them, en route for America, spend some weeks, or months, in the French metropolis, it is common to find them able to speak the language somewhat. Phil, however, was an exception, and ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... any player unless his own duck be on the rock. Before he may chase the thrower, he must therefore pick up his own duck and replace it should it have been knocked off. This replacing gives the thrower an opportunity to recover his own duck and run home; but should the duck not have been displaced from the duck rock, the thrower may have to ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... from The Dalles to Portland by the way we had come, the steamer stopping en route to pick up a night's catch of one of the salmon wheels on the river, and to deliver it at a ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... them.—It is the duty of a cook, when the time of encamping draws near, to get down from his horse, and to pick up, as he walks along, a sufficiency of dry grass, little bits of wood, and the like, to start a fire; which he should begin to make as soon as ever the caravan stops. The fire ought to be burning, and the kettle ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... merely bound his wrists, and lay down to sleep themselves, after eating a few dates and giving their horses a feed of barley. When the bold Provencal saw his enemies too soundly asleep to watch him, he used his teeth to pick up a scimitar, with which, steadying the blade by means of his knees, he contrived to cut through the cord which bound his hands, and thus recovered his liberty. He at once seized a carbine and a poniard, took the precaution to lay in a supply of dates, a small ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... gave me a turn, sir. For a minute I stared at her. "Why? Because if she don't pick up this light before very many minutes she'll be too close in to wear—tide'll have her on the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... "Brutus, pick up the pistol. My son, you are more amusing than I had hoped. Indeed, Mademoiselle, perhaps the old saying is right, that the best is in our door-yard. I have had, perhaps, an exceptional opportunity to see ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... none. Over his own past, over the lineage of nearly every negro in the South, hung a curtain. Even the names of the colored folk meant nothing, and gave no hint of their kin and clan. At the end of the war between the States, Peter's people had selected names for themselves, casually, as children pick up a pretty stone. They meant nothing. It occurred to Peter for the first time, as he sat looking at the chinaware, that he knew nothing about himself; whether his kinsmen were valiant or recreant he did not know. Even his own father he knew little ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... hot afternoon in August, Baggs left Medicine Bend with a light engine for Fort Park, where he was to pick up a train-load of ties, he had no thought of making further pioneer railroad history. His engine had been behaving so well that his usual charges of inefficiency against it had not for a long time been registered with ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... in a furious tone. "What are you doing there? Has your hardihood come to this that you pick up the words which escape me? Do me the pleasure to retire to your kitchen, and stay ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... of him again," Charlie said. "Though, if we do, we shall know where to pick up his traces, for he evidently frequents this place. I should say he has taken to the road. There were a brace of pistols in the holsters. That is how it is that we have not found him before. Well, at any rate, there ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... or into the road, and pick up the first round or oval stone you can find, not very white, nor very dark; and the smoother it is the better, only it must not shine. Draw your table near the window, and put the stone, which I will suppose is about the size of a in Fig. 5. (it had better ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... vessels, the bands of the Navy sometimes playing them out with the old airs of England. And the lads themselves, enjoying their evanescent triumph, and feeling like the applauded heroes on a carnival car, would shout back a merry response, or pick up the chorus of the tune rendered by ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... Sea Islands till I was sick with desire to go there: beautiful places, green for ever; perfect climate; perfect shapes of men and women, with red flowers in their hair; and nothing to do but to study oratory and etiquette, sit in the sun, and pick up the fruits as they fall. Navigator's Island is the place; absolute balm for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... happens) the argument that really persuaded them, as I believe, was one I never used at all; which was, that the woman had money and a parcel of land, and albeit no man could pick up courage to marry her, they did not relish a stranger stepping ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... back of their heads down to the train that sweeps the muddy pavement. Their hair is infested with beads, bits of lace and of ribbons, or mock jewelry. A bonnet is an epitome of fag-ends. The poor crazy creatures in the asylum, who pick up any rag, or wisp of straw, or scrap of tin, they may find, and wear it proudly upon their frocks, are not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... eighty snakes used in this dance are treated from first to last with the utmost kindness and respect, especially the rattlesnakes, a dozen of which will frequently be squirming on the ground at once. It is noticeable that the Indians never pick up a rattlesnake when coiled, but always wait until it straightens itself out under the feather stroking, for it is claimed that the rattlesnake cannot strike uncoiled. At all events, when one is at its full length, the Indians not only catch it up fearlessly, but carry it with impunity in their ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... by a troop of boys, who turned his rank into scorn, and assailed him with epithets hateful to him. Although the most harmless of creatures when left alone, he was dangerous when roused; and now he stooped repeatedly to pick up stones and hurl them at his tormentors, who took care, while abusing him, to keep at a considerable distance, lest he should get hold of them. Amidst the sounds of derision that followed him, might be heard the words frequently repeated—"Come hame, come hame." But in a few minutes the ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... announced their intention to go, for who would remain here and tiresomely drag out existence with the niggardly sums to be made from fishing when elsewhere the gold lies in such heaps that one can pick up whole bags full ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman

... Jane reached down to pick up the suitcase she had placed on the station platform in the first moment of reunion. All the pleasure of coming back to Wellington had been replaced by a sense of deep depression. In spite of the presence of her chums she felt now as she had ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft

... motive? No, she really was fascinated by Grushenka, that's to say, not by Grushenka, but by her own dream, her own delusion—because it was her dream, her delusion! Alyosha, darling, how did you escape from them, those women? Did you pick up your cassock and run? Ha ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... you pick up such a fine word? I suppose you have been interviewing old Jalap about your liver, eh, you hypochondriacal young donkey! Why, Monte Video is a regular paradise for the monkey tribe, and Jocko will be ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... preparations could not be completed with such speedy satisfaction. The yacht had to coal, take on supplies, and pick up two or three extra men for the crew. A Sunday came in and threw everything back a day. Lastly the sailing-master's wife, whom Mr. Carstairs was sending along to take charge of Mary on the homeward trip, chanced to be ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... pick up lead in the road, you have to buy it, and a nail's no good. You can't find anything better than a nut.... It's heavy, and ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... confused, and handed him the candy with such nervous haste, some of it fell to the floor, which gave the young man a chance for his frequent light laugh. Miss Deborah began in an agitated way to pick up the crumbs of cake from her lap, and ask her sister if she did not think Sarah had come for them. Mr. Denner stopped talking about a new sort of fly for trout, and said he thought—yes, he really thought, he had better be going, but he waited to listen with open-mouthed admiration ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... did you pick up that dimity?" he demanded of me as he laid a large hand with long strong fingers on my shoulders and gave me a slight shake. "Don't tell me it was over Pat Whitworth you had that ruckus at the Ritz-Carlton ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... a sudden stop. "What is it?" inquired I eagerly; but Peter, without vouchsafing any answer, swung himself down from his seat, and ran a short distance up a narrow lane which turned off from the high road, stopped to pick up something, examined the ground narrowly, and then returned to the carriage, holding up in triumph the object he had found, which, as he came nearer, I recognised to be a silk handkerchief I had seen ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... cried Carver clapping the young man on the shoulder as, breathless and glowing, he stooped to pick up his matchlock. "The sight of such valor will daunten the Indians more than a ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... place. We have a cottage there with the most wonderful garden for flowers you ever saw. It isn't more than thirty yards square, and there is a cliff path down to the beach. Isabel loves the place. The yacht is there too, and we go for cruises on calm days. I am hoping Isabel may pick up a little there, and she is always more herself when you are with her. You won't disappoint ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... pick and digs for anything big enough to see and pick up with his hands. He doesn't worry about the small stuff that takes sweat ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... desperately wounded as could be spared, and having superintended the washing and repairing of these articles, distributed them to the wounded who were in great need of additional clothing. She also caused her corps of contrabands to pick up all the arms and accoutrements left on the field, and turn them over to the Union Quartermaster. Having returned after a time to Louisville, she was appointed Matron of the Gayoso Hospital, at Memphis. This hospital occupied the Gayoso House, formerly the largest ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... been placed there deliberately and as a test, by those who had divined my suicidal purpose. The eye of the imagined detective, which, I am inclined to believe, and like to believe, was the eye of the real God, was upon me; and though I stepped directly over it, I did not pick up that thing of death. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... ropes or guys which hold up the masts of the rickcloths over the still unfinished corn-ricks. They gather in rows on the ridges of the tiles, and wisely take counsel of each other. Rooks are up at the acorns; they take them from the bough, while the pheasants come underneath and pick up those that have fallen. ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... there wouldn't make three bushels from an acre. I didn't bother to try to cut it, but the cows will get what little fodder there is as soon as I can get the shocks out of the field and turn 'em in for a few days to pick up what they can." ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... to spend; but I left New York without a rag, and it was you who made me countermand my trousseau, instead of having it sent after us. I wish now I hadn't listened to you—father'd have had to pay for THAT before he lost his money. As it is, it will be cheaper in the end for me to pick up a few things here. The advantage of going to the French dress-makers is that they'll wait twice as long for their money as the people at home. And they're all crazy to dress me—Bertha Shallum will tell you so: she says ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton



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