1.
When you pick something up, you lift it up.
He picked his cap up from the floor and stuck it back on his head...
Ridley picked up a pencil and fiddled with it.
PHRASAL VERB: V n P, V P n (not pron)
2.
When you pick yourself up after you have fallen or been knocked down, you stand up rather slowly.
Anthony picked himself up and set off along the track.
PHRASAL VERB: V pron-refl P
3.
When you ~ someone or something that is waiting to be collected, you go to the place where they are and take them away, often in a car.
She went over to her parents’ house to ~ some clean clothes...
I picked her up at Covent Garden to take her to lunch with my mother.
PHRASAL VERB: V P n (not pron), V n P
4.
If someone is picked up by the police, they are arrested and taken to a police station.
Rawlings had been picked up by police at his office...
The police picked him up within the hour.
PHRASAL VERB: be V-ed P, V n P, also V P n (not pron)
5.
If you ~ something such as a skill or an idea, you acquire it without effort over a period of time. (INFORMAL)
Where did you ~ your English?...
PHRASAL VERB: V P n (not pron)
6.
If you ~ someone you do not know, you talk to them and try to start a sexual relationship with them. (INFORMAL)
He had picked her up at a nightclub on Kallari Street, where she worked as a singer.
PHRASAL VERB: V n P, also V P n (not pron)
7.
If you ~ an illness, you get it from somewhere or something.
They’ve picked up a really nasty infection from something they’ve eaten.
= catch
PHRASAL VERB: V P n (not pron), also V n P
8.
If a piece of equipment, for example a radio or a microphone, picks up a signal or sound, it receives it or detects it.
We can ~ Italian television...
PHRASAL VERB: V P n (not pron)
9.
If you ~ something, such as a feature or a pattern, you discover or identify it.
Consumers in Europe are slow to ~ trends in the use of information technology.
PHRASAL VERB: V P n (not pron)
10.
If someone picks up a point or topic that has already been mentioned, or if they ~ on it, they refer to it or develop it.
Can I just ~ that gentleman’s point?...
I’ll ~ on what I said a couple of minutes ago.
PHRASAL VERB: V P n (not pron), V P P n, also V n P
11.
If trade or the economy of a country picks up, it improves.
Industrial production is beginning to ~.
PHRASAL VERB: V P
12.
If you pick someone up on something that they have said or done, you mention it and tell them that you think it is wrong. (mainly BRIT)
...if I may pick you up on that point...
PHRASAL VERB: V n P P n
13.
see also pick-up
14.
When you ~ the pieces after a disaster, you do what you can to get the situation back to normal again.
Do we try and prevent problems or do we try and ~ the pieces afterwards?...
PHRASE: V inflects
15.
When a vehicle picks up speed, it begins to move more quickly.
Brian pulled away slowly, but picked up speed.
= accelerate
PHRASE: V inflects