pick at
"pick-at" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pick at” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To touch, grab, handle, or pull tentatively or gingerly, using a utensil or one's fingers.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pick-at · pick at · English
pick at · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pick at |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “pick at” in English
Rare enough to double-check
pick at is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
pick at has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is pick at, spelled P-I-C-K- -A-T.
Definition
- 1To touch, grab, handle, or pull tentatively or gingerly, using a utensil or one's fingers.
- 2To touch, grab, handle, or pull tentatively or gingerly, using a utensil or one's fingers.
- 3To pick on or repeatedly criticize (someone).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pick at appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Mr Vholes remained immovable, except that he secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face with his black glove.
He began to pick at the fussy fringe on the arm of his chair.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.