| 释义 |
pick-up, n. (a.)
Also pickup.
[f. the phr. to pick up: see pick v.1 21.]
A. n.
1. The act of picking up; spec.
a. in Cricket, the picking up of the ball, in order to return it.
1886Daily News 27 July 3/2 [A cricketer] conspicuous for the quickness of his pick-up and the accuracy of his return. 1891W. G. Grace Cricket 262 Pick-up and return must be one action, or the batsman will steal a sharp run.
b. [pick v.1 21 b (b).] The collection of unretrieved game after a shooting party; the quantity of game so collected.
1897Encycl. Sport I. 443/1 Too large a ‘pick up’ means that the work was not properly done on the day itself. 1939Country Life 11 Feb. 153/1, I wish all hosts would provide themselves with those little cards that tell you the total bag together with the pick-up and the names of the guns. 1976Shooting Times & Country Mag. 16–22 Dec. 16/2 At the end of the pick-up a smile at last creased the face of keeper Bunny Spicer for the total bag was 253 pheasants, a record!
c. [pick v.1 21 l.] The act of apprehending or arresting. orig. U.S. Also, pick-up van (S. Afr.), a police van.
1908J. M. Sullivan Criminal Slang 18 Pickup, an arrest followed by no charge of crime. 1934L. Berg Revelations Prison Doctor viii. 109 Rao..called his arrests ‘pickups’ and inferred that the charges were too trivial to be worthy of notice. 1942P. Abrahams Dark Testament i. xii. 63 They all turn, and see a group of policemen jumping out of the moving pick-up van and running towards them. 1946Sun (Baltimore) 8 Nov. 6/2 The Kansas sheriff responded with a request for a ‘pick⁓up’ on another man in the case. 1948O. Walker Kaffirs are Lively xi. 173 There comes the big van... They call it the pick-up van. 1953P. Lanham Blanket Boy's Moon i. vi. 50 ‘Police! Police! The pick-up van's coming.’ Even as he shouted the warning, the police arrived in their closed van with a squealing of brakes. 1970G. Jackson Let. 10 June in Soledad Brother (1971) 34, I..started getting ‘picked up’ by the pigs more often... These pick-ups were mainly for ‘suspicion of’ or because I was in the wrong part of town.
d. [pick v.1 21 o.] Recovery, improvement.
a1916H. James Ivory Tower (1917) i. iii. 69 ‘It's one of Mr. Betterman's [nurses] taking a joy-ride in honour of his recovery!’.. ‘His pick-up will be a sell,’ [Davey] ruefully added. 1922H. Titus Timber xxxii. 279 During all those years there will be a steady pick-up in quality. 1933Sun (Baltimore) 10 Nov. 14/1 It is idle to suggest..that this newest relief scheme will help to tide the jobless over until ‘the spring pick-up begins’. 1958Times Rev. Industry Sept. 50/2 Export orders continue to be small, and there is little hope, with the American recession affecting steel-using industries on the Continent, of any pick-up in the near future. 1961Wall St. Jrnl. 4 Oct. 1 Farm machinery dealer Bob Houtz tilts back in a battered chair and tells of a sharp pickup in sales. 1970Daily Tel. 3 Feb. 19/2 Car sales showed their expected pick-up last month.
e. [pick v.1 21 i.] Reception of signals by electrical apparatus; spec. interference; also, a received radio or television programme.
1923Electrical Communication I. iv. 25/1 A portable amplifier for use with the ‘pick-up’ microphones..made it possible to pick up speeches or music at any desired point..and distribute the output to sound projectors. 1925Scribner's Mag. Oct. 90 (Advt.), Low-loss doughnut coils..conquer ‘pick-up’ of unwanted stations. 1937Discovery Nov. 330/2 To provide the subject matter for transmission, direct pick-up, artists in the studio, or previously photographed sound-film may be used. 1943Electronic Engin. XV. 521/3 Although the balanced input circuit minimises the pick-up it is sometimes essential to enclose the patient in a screened cubicle. 1948Sun (Baltimore) 3 Jan. 2/2 It was a thirty-minute radio network program with pick-ups from scattered points in the United States and abroad. 1949Frayne & Wolfe Elem. Sound Recording xxxii. 674 Microphone placement is less exacting in the stereophonic pickup of orchestral music. 1956Electronics Feb. 170/2 A series of measurements was made on the cross pickup of pulses in a 100-foot length of..communication cable. 1965Wireless World Aug. 383/2 When ferrite aerials are close to the inverter transformers, inductive pick-up can result. 1971Sci. Amer. Oct. 28/1 With a community wired from one or more terminal points to individual homes the local pickup would not be limited to the channels of the commercial television networks; instead participants could receive through the satellite a number of services to meet individual tastes. 1976Broadcast 29 Nov. 18/1 The camera has to be blimped to prevent noise pick-up from microphones.
f. [Cf. pick v.1 21 f.] Robbery, theft. Freq. attrib. slang.
1928, etc. [see pick-up man, sense B. a below]. 1938F. D. Sharpe Sharpe of Flying Squad i. 14 Lower down come the suit-case thieves, the pick-up merchants, small time smash-and-grabbers, [etc.]. Ibid. xxiii. 240 He had been persuaded to try his hand at ‘the pick up’ (stealing from unattended motor cars). 1962Gross's Criminal Investigation (ed. 5) viii. 206 At the pick-up, suitcase stealing.
g. [Cf. pick v.1 21 e.] Collection and transportation by means of an aircraft, motor vehicle, ship, etc. Freq. attrib.
1938W. L. G. Cowan Loud Report iii. 220 We usually kip in the afternoon and push on at night. There's a better chance of a pick-up. 1940Mech. Engin. Apr. 283/1 The record is not clear as to exactly when the first pickup in flight was made. Ibid. 285/2 The pickup system..makes possible the picking up of heavier loads. 1943Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XLVII. (Abstr. from Sci. & Techn. Press) 72 The Air Mail Pick-up service was started by the American Post Office Department in 1939. Ibid., Since short hauls seem to offer the best field for cargo glider operation, a similar method of pick-up becomes most attractive. 1952E. F. Davies Illyrian Venture iv. 68 The American pilot signalled Cairo that it was possible to rescue them by air pick-up from Gjinokaster airfield. 1960R. Williams Border Country iv. 94 ‘Where's the pickup then?’ ‘Signalled now.’.. Rees..crossed the line and walked down..to the siding. 1960R. W. Marks Dymaxion World of B. Fuller 22/1 Fuller's toilets.. consisted of a splashless hermetic and waterproof packaging system which mechanically packed, stored, and gross-cartoned wastes for eventual pickup for processing by chemical industries. 1971P. O'Donnell Impossible Virgin xii. 238, I fixed for the 'copter to stand by for a pick-up at eighteen 'undred hours. Ibid. xiv. 275 They rested beside..a triangle of flat stony ground... This was the pick-up area Willie had arranged. 1972‘G. Black’ Bitter Tea (1973) vii. 100 The Kao Ming hasn't been converted for carrying..steel containers, serving out her now very limited time on the copra pick-up routes. 1974L. Deighton Spy Story xix. 208 That radio signal obliges us to continue with the pick-up, even if we were certain it's phoney. 1976National Observer (U.S.) 11 Dec. 4/3 Ankeny, Iowa, saved $9,000 by opening dump sites to the public for two weekend clean-ups a year and abolished curbside pickups. 1977Chicago Tribune 2 Oct. xii. 2/2 The garbage just piled up all summer. No pickup. 1978J. Krantz Scruples ix. 259 Billy also established a delivery service in a town where multimillionaire customers have to do their own pickups in every boutique.
h. Nuclear Physics. A reaction in which an incident particle such as a proton or deuteron captures one or more nucleons from an atomic nucleus. Usu. attrib.
1950Physical Rev. LXXVII. 470 It is proposed that the fast deuterons observed among the products of high energy nuclear reactions are to be understood in terms of a ‘pick-up’ or sudden rearrangement process. Ibid., The pick-up process must not be thought of as taking place within the nucleus. 1970I. E. McCarthy Nuclear Reactions i. v. 95 If one of these interactions seems more plausible than the other to the reader, he need only consider the time-reversed situation (pick-up). 1971W. M. Gibson Nuclear Reactions vii. 108 A pick-up reaction in a nucleus with an odd neutron outside a closed inner shell can provide useful information about the state of the odd neutron..which is directly relevant to the shell model of the nucleus. 1975Nature 6 Mar. 19/3 The spectroscopic factors for stripping and pickup reactions on the same nucleus can be related to each other.
2. a. That which picks up, as a railway-train.
1877N.W. Linc. Gloss. s.v., The last train at night which runs..from Sheffield to New Holland, is called the Pick up. 1891Pall Mall G. 20 Oct. 6/2 The experiments for Mr. Edison's new electric tramcar were conducted at his laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey... Its chief feature is the ‘pickups’ which take the current from one line of rails. 1898Tit-Bits 18 June 220/3 Those [lights] of slow goods trains and ‘pick-ups’ are distinguished by a single green light..placed over the left-hand buffer. 1972M. Glenny tr. Solzhenitsyn's August 1914 xlii. 419 Trams passed, clanging, their pick-ups hissing along the wires. 1974Physics Bull. Apr. 154/3 The dangers caused by power failure in magnetic hoists are avoided in a new design from Mullard. For the pickup is a permanent magnet rather than the usual ferroelectric magnet.
b. (a) A sensor or transducer.
1943D. G. Fink Television Standards & Pract. iv. 91 Specifications to be placed on the spectral response of each of the three color-sensitive elements of the pickup. 1957R. A. Heinlein Door into Summer v. 79, I suppose it was a stethoscope he used although it looked like a miniaturized hearing aid... The pick-up he pushed against me was as cold and hard as ever. 1961Engineering 8 Sept. 309/1 Phototransistor pickups, focused on rotating black and white discs, provide signals for the phase meter. 1962F. I. Ordway et al. Basic Astronautics vii. 316 By placing temperature pickups at various points on the model flame deflector it was possible to determine the approximate temperatures encountered..in an actual firing. 1978J. Gores Gone (1979) iii. 24 He was at the corner where he knew the concealed pickup was.
(b) spec. = cartridge 1 e, head n.1 11 g, pick-up arm in sense B. a below.
1926Glasgow Herald 5 Oct. 5 Instead of the conventional sound-box an electrical device known as a magnetic ‘pick-up’ is guided over the record, converting the mechanical vibrations imparted to the needle into electrical vibrations. 1926Gramophone Dec. 294/1 Instead of a sound-box there is what is known as a ‘pick-up’. 1938Times 25 Aug. 8/2 It has been specially designed as a supplementary unit for existing radio receivers having pick-up terminals. 1940Gramophone Sept. 93/1 The output is very much less than that given by the average moving iron or piezo electric types of pick-up. 1941[see cartridge 1 e]. 1946Newsweek 13 May 23 (Advt.), Your Victrola's jewel-point pickup floats like a feather on water. 1951[see head n.1 11 g]. 1959New Scientist 31 July 517/2 The whole pick-up must be able to do the manœuvres required of it without giving rise to excessive pressures which would damage the record. 1963Which? Jan. 8/2 The pick up is composed of two parts—an arm, and at the end of the arm..a head. 1975G. J. King Audio Handbk. viii. 170 The modern pickup consists of an arm and a cartridge. 1976‘J. Fraser’ Who steals my Name? ix. 107 The needle on the pick-up of his record player..had a beard on it... His room was filthy.
(c) spec. A device that produces an electrical signal corresponding to the displacement, speed, or acceleration of a vibrating body.
1950P. G. Andres Survey Mod. Electronics viii. 346 Electronic comparator gauges use a pickup that operates on the principle of displacing an armature..to generate a corresponding voltage. Ibid. 363 Since the pickup responds to the acceleration of the vibratory motion, integrating networks convert its output..into readings proportional to velocity or displacement. 1966McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. VIII. 667/1 A vibration pickup can be used to generate an electrical signal directly from the vibration of a string; this is the case in the electric guitar and electric piano. 1968Melody Maker 6 Apr. 5 (Advt.), Take our pickups... To get sound from a metal guitar string, all you have to do is wind wire around a magnetic core and place it near that string. 1970R. H. Wallace Understanding & measuring Vibration iv. 40 Because the aircraft structure is such that low frequencies under, say, 10 Hz are readily transmitted,..it will be vital to use pickups and read-out equipment going down to zero frequency, or near. 1972M. P. Blake in Blake & Mitchell Vibration & Acoustic Measurement Handbk. xx. 422 The proximity pickup is likely to become increasingly popular for monitoring the shafts of high-speed, large, powerful drives, such as turbines, reading directly in displacement which, in this application, is usually the parameter of most interest. Ibid., A growing tendency among those who measure vibration favors the acceleration pickup.
c. In full, pick-up truck or pick-up van. A small truck or van used for carrying light loads (see also sense 1 c above). So pick-up body, a small, detachable body for use on various types of light trucks.
1932Kansas City (Missouri) Times 21 Jan. 22 There was a delivery car with a pick-up body on it in King City. 1939Sun (Baltimore) 18 Jan. 7/2 Dairies' pickup trucks were subject to commission regulation. 1944Democrat 29 June 1/4 This includes all operators of trucks and pickups whose gasoline rations are not controlled. 1948Southern Sierran (Los Angeles) Apr. 4/1 The work will be made lighter if someone will provide the use of a pick-up truck for removing the dirt. 1959F. Stark Riding to Tigris 96 A piece of the bull-dozer was extracted and loaded on the pick-up, which looked like a bright orange lorry. 1973A. Ross Dunfermline Affair 45 He must be going out in the pick-up. Ibid. 48 There were still plenty of motor cars in the car park, but no small grey pick-up truck. 1977Cork Examiner 8 June 14/3 (Advt.), 30 cwt. pick-up truck and driver available. 1977Western Morning News 30 Aug. 2/2 (Advt.), J.4 Pick-up J registered..long M.O.T.
3. That which is picked up, as a pick-up meal (see B. b); one who is picked up, a chance passenger, acquaintance, etc.; spec. a person whose acquaintance is formed with the intention of having a sexual relationship; a prostitute or street-walker; also, the act of forming such an acquaintanceship.
1848Trollope Kellys & O'Kellys III. xi. 269 The pick⁓up on the Derby is about four thousand. 1860[see B]. 1871L. H. Bagg 4 Years at Yale 46 Pick-up,..a street-walker, of the less disreputable sort. 1890W. A. Wallace Only a Sister 311 She..will be a grand pick-up for somebody when he goes. 1895Funk's Stand. Dict. s.v. Pick vb., Pick-up, (Slang) a woman whose acquaintance is made on the street; especially, a street-walker. 1898Wollocombe Morn till Eve ii. 15 Each driver was anxious to get the first chance of pick-ups on the road. 1927Dunning & Abbott Broadway xvi. 158 ‘Dan McCorn out there?’ enquired Porky. Steve nodded. ‘He's talking to one of the pick-ups.’ 1930San Antonio (Texas) Light 31 Jan. 14/7 (Advt.), A real pickup for someone: 50 feet on Broadway... An exceptional site. 1930J. B. Priestley Angel Pavement iv. 170 The big teashops..were always crowded with girls and always offered a chance of a pick-up. 1935G. Greene England made Me iv. 169 She might be meeting her lover and not a pick-up in Gothenburg. 1944M. Laski Love on Supertax iv. 52 And what about you, Clarissa? Who's your latest pickup? 1957‘M. Yourcenar’ Coup de Grâce 66 She was fairly throbbing against me, and no previous feminine encounter, whether with a chance pick-up, or with an avowed prostitute, had prepared me for that sudden, terrifying sweetness. 1970[see fille de joie]. 1974T. Allbeury Snowball ix. 48 The pick-up lacked grace and she made it clear she was bored. 1977New Yorker 22 Aug. 66/3 Paolo..accedes with wearied eyelids to the blandishments of yet another of his pickups.
4. An informal game between sides picked on the spot.
1905Daily Chron. 31 Aug. 3/1 If one accidentally pulled a ball in a school pick-up. 1917A. Waugh Loom of Youth i. ii. 31 Even a desultory Pick-Up woke into excitement when the shrill, piping voice of a full-back came in with, ‘The Bull's coming.’
5. Printing. ‘Standing matter that comes into use and is counted as new matter’.
6. = pick-me-up.
1881Hardy Laodicean III. v. iii. 36 Every sip you took of your pick-up as you sat there showed me something was wrong. 1921D. Marquis Old Soak 10, I took mine straight for the most part, except when I needed some special kind of a pick-up in the morning. 1936N.Y. Herald-Tribune 25 Aug. 8 Mix it with orange, lemon, grapefruit, pineapple juices or with ginger ale for a zesty pick-up. 1949Sun (Baltimore) 9 Nov. 15/4 Investigation of methods to improve your morning pickup [sc. coffee].
7. [Cf. pick v.1 21 q.] The capacity of an engine for recovering speed; acceleration.
1909Times 27 Apr. 4/1 The flexibility and ‘pick up’ of the engine were such that the merest novice could handle the car with ease. 1923Daily Mail 16 Mar. 10 (Advt.), An engine of great power, exceptional pick-up and flexibility, of notable smoothness and quietness. 1930Engineering 12 Sept. 326/1 Apart from these factors, a smooth pick up, absence of vibration, and uniform torque are of great value. 1934W. Nelson Seaplane Design vi. 53 The form of the underwater portion of the float must be such that water resistance does not hinder a quick pick-up to planing attitude. 1963Lebende Sprachen VIII. 108/1 The car has good pick-up.
8. Mus. A series of introductory notes leading to the opening of a tune or portion of a tune.
1934S. R. Nelson All about Jazz iii. 65 After a short passage of one or two bars, as a ‘pick up’, the ensemble will then take the last chorus and coda. 1949L. Feather Inside Be-Bop 62 The last phrase starts with a three-beat pickup into an on-the-beat quarter note on the first beat of bar 7. 1956O. Duke Sideman xii. 150 Bert played a piano intro and Bernie took pickups into Laura and then just sang it.
9. Tendency to pick up or absorb.
1938World Petroleum Apr. 45/3 The flow through the main part of the furnace is in four parallel paths, each designed to have the same heat pick-up. 1955Mondolfo & Zmeskal Engineering Metall. viii. 181 Pickup is the inclusion of foreign particles, especially scale, on the surface of the rolled product. 1955Jrnl. Soc. Dyers & Colourists LXXI. 896/2 Although high pick-up is generally desirable, some fabrics need to be well squeezed. Ibid. 899/1 The padding temperature was 50°c. and the pick-up of the medium-weight rayon-staple fabric to be dyed was 100%. a1977Harrison Mayer Ltd. Catal. 67/1 The batts and props we supply are designed to have a low glaze pick up.
B. attrib. or as adj.
a. = that picks up or is used in picking up, as in pick-up apparatus, pick-up circuit, pick-up water-trough, etc.; pick-up arm, in a record-player or record deck, an arm carrying the stylus at one end and usu. counter-balanced at the other so as to be able to swing horizontally over the turntable and vertically; pick-up baler, a machine that picks up hay, etc., and bales it; pick-up man colloq., (a) a thief, esp. of luggage; (b) U.S., one who collects money wagered with bookmakers; (c) at a rodeo: see quot. 1961; pick-up tube Television, a vacuum tube that produces an electrical signal corresponding to an optical image formed in or on it; a camera tube.
b. = picked up for the nonce, as in pick-up crew, pick-up dinner, pick-up game, pick-up team.
a.
1889G. Findlay Eng. Railway 106 The tenders attached to the engines have a ‘pick up’ apparatus, provided with a scoop, which can be lowered into the trough while the train is passing over it at full speed, and the trucks are filled with water in a few seconds.
1937Pick-up arm [see overhang n. d]. 1946[see cartridge 1 e]. 1976Gramophone July 237/2 Installing the QDC-1e cartridge in an SME 3009/II pickup arm with Thorens TD125/II turntable presented no problems.
1946Agricultural Progress XXI. i. 34 The increasing use of the one-man, twine tying, pick-up baler. 1951Engineering 26 Jan. 92/1 Imports from the United Kingdom were to include 6,000 wheeled tractors..; imports from the United States..pick-up balers and combine harvesters.
1876Preece & Sievewright Telegraphy 274 The faulty section of the through wire is thrown out until the fault is removed. In its place is substituted the section cd of the ‘pick-up’ circuit. Communication is thus preserved between a and e.
1894Westm. Gaz. 29 Jan. 5/1 A pick-up goods train driver and fireman experienced a shock as if the locomotive had struck some hard substance lying on the rails.
1928Detective Fiction Weekly 8 Sept. 564/2 (heading) International crooks I have known; No. 6—‘Gentleman George’, pick-up man. 1944C. Himes Black on Black (1973) 244 The pickup man took his book one day, and he told Clara, ‘We should have been on the other end.’ 1961Times 14 Nov. 12/7 From the moment that he leaves the chute, the cowboy must remain in the saddle for 10 seconds. Then, on a whistle signal, two mounted ‘pick-up’ men converge on the buckhorse and the cowboy dismounts as best he can. The ‘pick-up’ men gallop after the riderless horse. One of them grabs the rein or head collar, and forces him out of the arena through a gate into a collecting ring. This in itself is often a thrilling spectacle, as it is a point of honour for the ‘pick-up’ men to take out the bucking animal at full gallop. 1964A. Wykes Gambling iv. 92 These agents are known as ‘pickup men’ or ‘writers’; they collect and pay out on behalf of the bookmakers, who pay them 10 per cent of their net winnings. 1966Sunday Mail Mag. (Brisbane) 9 Jan. 1/3 As soon as a gong had clanged the all-clear, pick-up men..tore after them on horses.
1933Jrnl. Inst. Electr. Engin. LXXIII. 438/2 The development of the pick-up tube was pushed on, and the results..soon surpassed those of mechanical scanning. 1965Wireless World Sept. 461/2 A small television camera which uses a solid-state image sensing panel in place of the conventional electron-beam pick-up tube. 1978Broadcast 21 Aug. 12/3 An Ikegami CT2-2400 three-tube colour camera, with Saticon pick-up tubes, and synchronised to a broadcast sync pulse generator.
b.a1859Maj. Downing in London (Bartlett), They had only a pick-up dinner. 1860Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 3), A pick-up dinner, called also simply a pick-up, is a dinner made up of such fragments of cold meats as remain from former meals. 1909Q. Rev. Oct. 618 The rest of the administration was arranged on the principle which governs ‘pick-up’ sides in a school-match. 1936Rhythm Apr. 28/1 The ensemble is good, allowing for the difficulties surrounding the formation of a pick-up nine-piece band. 1938D. Baker Young Man with Horn iv. iii. 220 He..made records with who knows how many pick-up bands. 1956D. Flower tr. Panassié & Gautier's Dict. Jazz 197 Pick-up band, a band formed of musicians who regularly play elsewhere, but who come together for a special purpose, e.g. a recording date, a broadcast, a concert, a short nightclub engagement. 1959‘F. Newton’ Jazz Scene iv. 65 These were mostly small groups playing in odd night⁓clubs, or pick-up bands for recordings. 1962Sunday Times (Colour Suppl.) 10 June 3 His strength is as the lead of pick-up groups of first-rate players. 1972J. Mosedale Football iv. 47 He suffered a leg injury in a pick-up basketball game. 1977Gramophone Apr. 1618/1 Lester headed a pick-up group containing trumpeter Billy Butterfield and pianist Johnny Guarnieri. 1977Tennis World Sept. 17/3 A ‘pick-up’ doubles team is a scratch combination. 1977Transatlantic Rev. lx. 120 Every Sunday morning he and his friends had a pick-up game over on Wentbridge Common.
c. pick-up camper (see quots.).
1973Country Life 15 Nov. 1568/3 The ‘pick-up’ camper..is the coachbuilt caravan in demountable form on a pick-up truck... On arrival on site, it is jacked clear of the vehicle. 1974Trailer Life Nov. 92 Some trailerists, concluding it was easier to drive a truck than hitch and unhitch a trailer, had their trailers mounted on a truck bed. This was practical. But since the trailers had not been designed for their new purpose, it proved unattractive. And so the pickup camper came into being, followed by a more stable and spacious chassis-mount.
Add:[A.] [2.] d. Angling. On a fixed-spool reel: a semi-circular loop of metal which guides the line back on to the spool as it is reeled in.
1951A. Wanless Fixed Spool Angling i. 18 Some of the best reels are to be had with a mechanical or finger pick-up, as the angler prefers. 1960C. Willock Anglers' Encycl. 132/1 Practically all pick-ups these days are of the ‘full bail’ type in which the pick-up is made in one continuous loop of steel. 1987Coarse Fishing Mar. 40/1 After the bait touched bottom I let out a few feet of line then engaged the pick-up.
[3.] b. A film which is made by one company and acquired (for distribution, etc.) by another. U.S. Cinematogr.
1978N.Y. Times 26 June c18/2 Both movies are pickups—independently made and financed films that have been picked up for distribution by a major studio. 1983Ibid. 22 May iii. 28/3 Fox produced only half a dozen pictures annually, and made up the difference with so-called pickups, films made outside the studio. Despite the deprecatory term, not all of the pickups were undistinguished. 1985Standard 3 Jan. 21/2 The Lean film originated in Britain with our own Thorn–EMI and is what's called in America a ‘pick-up’.
[7.] b. transf. in Athletics. The process of increasing speed, esp. at the beginning of a race; hence, the capacity for or rate of such acceleration. (In quot. 1960, a training exercise to develop this.)
1960J. K. Doherty Mod. Track & Field (ed. 2) vi. 222 Wind-sprints or pickups. There are many variations of these. A man repeatedly sprints or ‘picks up’ until he is winded. 1961Times 22 July 3/2 Radford had the best start in the 100 yards, but his pick-up could not compare with that of Budd. 1988Athletics Weekly 30 Sept. 25/3 First out of the blocks it was again his pick-up which gave him that essential lead. |