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pick-up

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

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Letters

7 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "pick-up", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "pick-up" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "pick-up" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

pick up is aEnglishverb. It means: To lift; to grasp and raise.

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Key facts for pick up
PropertyValue
Headwordpick up
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters7
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

pick up is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for pick up is 7 letters long, classified as averb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 24 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for pick up in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is pick up, spelled P-I-C-K- -U-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    To lift; to grasp and raise.
  2. 2
    To collect an object, especially in passing.
  3. 3
    To acquire (something) accidentally; to catch or contract (a disease).
  4. 4
    To clean up; to return to an organized state.
  5. 5
    To collect a passenger.
  6. 6
    To collect and detain (a suspect).
  7. 7
    To obtain and publish a story, news item, etc.
  8. 8
    To improve, increase, or speed up.
  9. 9
    To restart or resume.
  10. 10
    To reach and continue along (a road).
  11. 11
    To learn, to grasp; to begin to understand; to realize.
  12. 12
    To receive (a radio signal or the like).
  13. 13
    To notice, detect or discern; to pick up on.
  14. 14
    To point out the behaviour, habits, or actions of (a person) in a critical manner; used with on.
  15. 15
    To meet and seduce somebody for romantic purposes, especially in a social situation.
  16. 16
    To answer a telephone.
  17. 17
    To receive calls; to function correctly.
  18. 18
    To pay for.
  19. 19
    To reduce the despondency of.
  20. 20
    To take control (physically) of something.
  21. 21
    To mark, to defend against an opposition player by following them closely.
  22. 22
    To record; to notch up.
  23. 23
    To behave in a manner that results in a foul.
  24. 24
    To promote somebody who was previously passed over.

This word in other languages

Spanish(Español)Portuguese(Português)French(Français)German(Deutsch)

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "pick up"?
"pick up" is spelled P-I-C-K- -U-P.
What does "pick up" mean?
As a verb, "pick up" means: To lift; to grasp and raise.
What language does "pick up" come from?
"pick up" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

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Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.