picker

P3I1C3K5E1R1
/ˈpɪkə(ɹ)/

noun

A worker responsible for picking or retrieving ordered items, etc.

“date picker”

Less commonScrabble 14Word of the Day · Aug 6, 2026

Meanings

picker1

nounpicker (plural pickers)

plural pickers

  1. agentAgent noun of pick; one who picks.

    The apple picker climbed the tree.

    2 more examples

    That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.

    1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

    I have observed that there are only two types of eaters in this world - pickers and wolfers.

    1987, Kerry Cue, Hang On To Your Horses Doovers, page 13
    1. A worker responsible for picking or retrieving ordered items, etc.

      "Farmers can't get sufficient fruit pickers," he said. "It is the same pool of labour, agency staff [who are] largely eastern European [and] a huge number of them Polish."

      2021 August 27, “Fruit picker shortage spreads to Christmas workers”, in BBC News, United States, archived from the original on 05 Sep 2025
      1 more example

      Already at Amazon warehouses, ‘pickers’—the workers who locate purchased items and transport them to the shipping station within the warehouse—are issued a hand-held device that tracks their every move.

      2020, Noreena Hertz, chapter 8, in The Lonely Century, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN
  2. computingAny user interface control that selects something.

    date picker

    1 more example

    file picker

  3. engineeringA machine for picking fibrous materials to pieces so as to loosen and separate the fibre.
  4. businessThe piece in a loom that strikes the end of the shuttle and impels it through the warp.
  5. governmentA priming wire for cleaning the vent, in ordnance.
  6. slanggold panningA fragment of gold smaller than a nugget but large enough to be picked up.
  7. historicalOne who removes defects from and finishes electrotype plates.
  8. archaicA pilferer.

Picker2

proper nounPicker (plural Pickers)

plural Pickers · alternative Pickar

Synonyms & antonyms

nouna person who chooses or selects out

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

picker · noun

  1. Middle Englishpikere
  2. Englishpicker

From Middle English pikere, pykare, equivalent to pick + -er.

Full word history & related roots →

Picker · proper noun

  1. Yiddishפּיקן“to peck”
  2. DutchPicker
  3. GermanPicker
  4. EnglishPicker

Various origins: * From picker, an English occupational surname for someone who used a pick. * Borrowed from German Picker, an occupational surname for someone who used a pickaxe. * Borrowed from Dutch Picker, an occupational surname for a stonemason or for a reaper or mower. * Jewish Ashkenazi nickname for a glutton, from Yiddish פּיקן (pikn, “to peck”).

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Bulgarian берач
  • берач (berač)one who picks
Finnish valitsin, poimija
  • valitsincomputing: any user interface control that selects something
  • poimijaone who picks
French sélecteur, cueilleur
  • sélecteurcomputing: any user interface control that selects something
  • cueilleurone who picks
  • glaneurone who picks
  • glaneuseone who picks
Portuguese seletor
  • seletorcomputing: any user interface control that selects something
Ukrainian збира́ч
  • збира́ч (zbyráč)one who picks

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with picker

All rhymes →

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

picker. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/picker

MLA

“picker.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/picker. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “picker,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/picker.

Source: picker on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.