picked

Picked is the past tense and past participle of the verb pick. It has several related senses, all drawn from the core idea of taking or removing something from a larger set.

In the sense of choosing, picked describes selecting one or more items from a group. For example, a decision-maker might say, “She picked the blue jacket over the red one,” or a team might have “picked three finalists” for a competition.

In the sense of plucking or harvesting, picked refers to removing something from a surface or plant, often when mature or ready. Examples include “picked ripe apples” or “picked flowers from the garden.” In agriculture, workers may harvest crops by picking them by hand.

In music, picked describes playing a stringed instrument with a plectrum or with the fingers. A guitarist may be said to play in a picked style, as opposed to fingerpicking, and “picked notes” refers to those plucked tones.

Other uses include examining or scrutinizing closely, as in “picked apart” or “picked over” a plan or dataset, and the phrase “pick on someone,” meaning to constantly nag or blame. The verb also appears in compounds such as “pick out” (to select or distinguish) and “pick up” (to acquire or resume).

Etymology traces picked back to the English verb pick, with origins in Old English and related Germanic forms. The sense continues to evolve in modern usage through selection, removal, performance, and critical examination.