different between muster vs pick

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English musteren, borrowed from Anglo-Norman mostrer, Middle French monstrer, moustrer (whence the noun monstre, which gave the English noun), from Latin m?nstr?re (“to show”), from monere (“to admonish”). Cognate with French montrer (“to show”), Italian mostrare (“to show”), Spanish mostrar (“to show”). See also monster.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?m?s.t?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?m?s.t?/
• Rhymes: -?st?(?)

Noun

muster (plural musters)

1. Gathering.
   1. An assemblage or display; a gathering, collection of people or things. [from 14th c.]
      • 1743, Richard Steele & Joseph Addison, The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.:

        She seems to hear the Repetition of his Mens Names with Admiration; and waits only to answer him with as false a Muster of Lovers.

      • 1920, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, Issue 13,

        The figures from 1788 to 1825 inclusive, as already mentioned, are based on the musters taken in those years; those for subsequent years are based upon estimates made on the basis of Census results and the annual […] .

   2. (chiefly military) An assembling or review of troops, as for parade, verification of numbers, inspection, exercise, or introduction into service. [from 15th c.]
      • 1598, William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1:

        Come, let vs take a muster speedily: / Doomesday is neere; dye all, dye merrily.

      • 1663, Samuel Pepys, Diary, 4 Jul 1663:

        And after long being there, I 'light, and walked to the place where the King, Duke &c., did stand to see the horse and foot march by and discharge their guns, to show a French Marquisse (for whom this muster was caused) the goodness of our firemen […]

      • 2010, Ohtar, "Enthroned", Slechtvalk, A Forlorn Throne.

   3. The sum total of an army when assembled for review and inspection; the whole number of effective men in an army.
      • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

        Ye publish the musters of your own bands, and proclaim them to amount of thousands.

   4. (Australia, New Zealand) A roundup of livestock for inspection, branding, drenching, shearing etc. [from 19th c.]
      • 2006, John Gilfoyle, Bloody Jackaroos!, Boolarong Press:

        McGuire took the two of them out to Kidman's Bore on the Sylvester River where about two dozen stockmen from different stations had gathered to tend the muster along the edge of the Simpson Desert.

2. Showing.
   1. (obsolete) Something shown for imitation; a pattern. [15th-19th c.]
   2. (obsolete) An act of showing something; a display. [15th-17th c.]
      • 1590, Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia, Book III:

        Thus all things being condignely ordered, will an ill favoured impatiencie he waited, until the next morning he might make a muster of him selfe in the Iland [...].

      • 1647, Beaumont and Fletcher, The Queen of Corinth, Act 2:

        And when you find your women's favour fail, / 'Tis ten to one you'll know yourself, and seek me, / Upon a better muster of your manners.

   3. A collection of peafowl (an invented term rather than one used by zoologists). [from 15th c.]

Derived terms

• pass muster
• bangtail muster

Translations

Verb

muster (third-person singular simple present musters, present participle mustering, simple past and past participle mustered)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To show, exhibit. [15th-17th c.]
2. (intransitive) To be gathered together for parade, inspection, exercise, or the like (especially of a military force); to come together as parts of a force or body. [from 15th c.]
3. (transitive) To collect, call or assemble together, such as troops or a group for inspection, orders, display etc. [from 15th c.]
   • 12 July 2012, Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift

     With the help of some low-end boosting, Dinklage musters a decent amount of kid-appropriate menace—although he never does explain his gift for finding chunks of ice shaped like pirate ships—but Romano and Leary mainly sound bored, droning through their lines as if they’re simultaneously texting the contractors building the additions on their houses funded by their fat sequel paychecks.

4. (transitive, US) To enroll (into service). [from 19th c.]
5. (transitive, Australia, New Zealand) To gather or round up livestock.

Synonyms

• (gather, unite, especially troops): rally

Derived terms

• muster in
• muster out
• muster up

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

muster (plural musters)

1. Synonym of mustee
   • 1825, The Gentleman's Magazine, page 4:

     The next, the Quadroon, from the white and mulatto woman. The third descent, from a white and quadroon, is called a muster; from the fourth, between a white and a muster, springs the musteephinas and the fifth descent, viz. from a white and musteephina, is white by law, and of free birth; indeed the two latter classes are as white as a European.

   • 1925, Charles Spurgeon Johnson, Elmer Anderson Carter, Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, page 291:

     Mixed bloods, they are suspended between two races, — mulattoes, quadroons, musters, mustafinas, cabres, griffies, zambis, quatravis, tresalvis, coyotes, saltatras, albarassados, cambusos, — neither white nor black, but Negroes.

References

• muster in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• muster in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Sumter, estrum, mustre, muters, stumer, turmes

German

Pronunciation

Verb

muster

1. singular imperative of mustern

Silesian

Etymology

Borrowed from German Muster.

Noun

muster m

1. design, pattern

English

Etymology

From Middle English piken, picken, pikken, from Old English *piccian, *p?cian (attested in p?cung (“a pricking”)), and p?can (“to pick, prick, pluck”), both from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n?, *p?kijan? (“to pick, peck, prick, knock”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew-, *bu- (“to make a dull, hollow sound”). Cognate with Dutch pikken (“to pick”), German picken (“to pick, peck”), Old Norse pikka, pjakka (whence Icelandic pikka (“to pick, prick”), Swedish picka (“to pick, peck”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?k/, [p??k]
• Homophone: pic
• Rhymes: -?k

Noun

pick (plural picks)

1. A tool used for digging; a pickaxe.
2. A tool for unlocking a lock without the original key; a lock pick, picklock.
3. A comb with long widely spaced teeth, for use with tightly curled hair.
4. A choice; ability to choose.
   • 1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do With It?

     France and Russia have the pick of our stables.

5. That which would be picked or chosen first; the best.
6. (basketball) A screen.
7. (lacrosse) An offensive tactic in which a player stands so as to block a defender from reaching a teammate.
8. (American football) An interception.
9. (baseball) A good defensive play by an infielder.
10. (baseball) A pickoff.
11. (music) A tool used for strumming the strings of a guitar; a plectrum.
12. A pointed hammer used for dressing millstones.
13. (obsolete) A pike or spike; the sharp point fixed in the center of a buckler.

    • Take down my buckler […] and grind the pick on 't.

14. (printing, dated) A particle of ink or paper embedded in the hollow of a letter, filling up its face, and causing a spot on a printed sheet.
    • c. 1866, Thomas MacKellar, The American Printer

      If it be in the smallest degree gritty, it clogs the form, and consequently produces a thick and imperfect impression; no pains should, therefore, be spared to render it perfectly smooth; it may then be made to work as clear and free from picks

15. (art, painting) That which is picked in, as with a pointed pencil, to correct an unevenness in a picture.
16. (weaving) The blow that drives the shuttle, used in calculating the speed of a loom (in picks per minute); hence, in describing the fineness of a fabric, a weft thread.

Derived terms

• pickaxe
• take one's pick
• toothpick

Translations

Verb

pick (third-person singular simple present picks, present participle picking, simple past and past participle picked)

1. To grasp and pull with the fingers or fingernails.

   Don't pick at that scab.

   He picked his nose.

3. To harvest a fruit or vegetable for consumption by removing it from the plant to which it is attached; to harvest an entire plant by removing it from the ground.

   It's time to pick the tomatoes.

4. To pull apart or away, especially with the fingers; to pluck.

   She picked flowers in the meadow.

   to pick feathers from a fowl

5. To take up; especially, to gather from here and there; to collect; to bring together.

   to pick rags

6. To remove something from somewhere with a pointed instrument, with the fingers, or with the teeth.

   to pick the teeth; to pick a bone; to pick a goose; to pick a pocket

   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task

     He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems / With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet.

   • 1867, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist Chapter 43

     He was charged with attempting to pick a pocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him,--his own, my dear, his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it.

7. To decide upon, from a set of options; to select.

   I'll pick the one with the nicest name.

8. (transitive) To seek (a fight or quarrel) where the opportunity arises.
9. (cricket) To recognise the type of ball being bowled by a bowler by studying the position of the hand and arm as the ball is released.

   He didn't pick the googly, and was bowled.

10. (music) To pluck the individual strings of a musical instrument or to play such an instrument.

    He picked a tune on his banjo.

11. To open (a lock) with a wire, lock pick, etc.
12. To eat slowly, sparingly, or by morsels; to nibble.
    • 1693, John Dryden, Third Satire of Persius

      Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore?

13. To do anything fastidiously or carefully, or by attending to small things; to select something with care.

    I gingerly picked my way between the thorny shrubs.

14. To steal; to pilfer.
    • Book of Common Prayer

      to keep my hands from picking and stealing

15. (obsolete) To throw; to pitch.
16. (dated) To peck at, as a bird with its beak; to strike at with anything pointed; to act upon with a pointed instrument; to pierce; to prick, as with a pin.
17. (transitive, intransitive) To separate or open by means of a sharp point or points.

    to pick matted wool, cotton, oakum, etc.

    • 1912, Victor Whitechurch, Thrilling Stories of the Railway

      Naphtha lamps shed a weird light over a busy scene, for the work was being continued night and day. A score or so of sturdy navvies were shovelling and picking along the track.

18. (basketball) To screen.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• mattock

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Verb

pick

1. singular imperative of picken
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of picken

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English pyke, from Old English p?c.

Noun

pick (plural pickkès)

1. a pike

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN