1481 Petty Customs Acct. in H. S. Cobb Overseas Trade of London (1990) 179 Ere pikers.

1545 Rates Custome House sig. bj^v Ere pikers or tothe pikers of bone the groce xii.d.

1617 J. Harington tr. H. Ronsovius Preserv. Health xi. 44 in Englishmans Doctor (rev. ed.) After meat taken..clense the teeth either with Iuory..or some picker of pure siluer or gold.

a1657 G. Daniel Trinarchodia in Poems (1878) III. To Rdr. 135 Euery hand Of accident doth with a Picker stand, To scale the wards of Life.

1682 W. M. Remembr. Show & Shooting 1583 in W. Wood Bow-mans Glory 54 Every one had his Page going before him..some bearing Pickers, some Spades, and some Hammers.

1707 J. Mortimer Whole Art Husbandry (1721) I. 192 Having with an Iron Picker cleared away all the Earth out of the Hills, so as to make the Stock bare to the principal Roots [of the hops].

c1785 in Daily Chron. 9 Dec. (1904) 4/6 Two of us..when alone would with pickers pick the mortar out of the bricks till we had opened a hole big enough to go in.

1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 837 The rubbish is withdrawn as it accumulates, at the bottom of the hole, by means of a picker.

1874 J. H. Collins Princ. Metal Mining (1875) xi. 62 The pickers used in the Western mines are longer and narrower. They are used..to pick out the small fragments of loose rock which wedge in larger portions in some situations.

1906 N.E.D. at Picker ¹ The name of various tools: e.g. A toothpick; a tool for picking stones from a horse's foot; a tool for clearing out small openings, as in a lamp or a powder-flask; a priming-wire for clearing the vent of a gun; a tool for scraping clod-salt from the bottom of a salt-pan; in brick-making, one of two spike-toothed horizontal shafts which revolve in opposite directions, and disintegrate the raw clay; a picklock; a needle for making anglers' flies; a tool, like a graver, used in touching up electrotypes.

1907 Gentleman's Mag. July 105/1 Nothing more joyous can be imagined than a good ‘digging-sing’..with the pickers—so they call their pick-axes—falling in regular beat.

1982 D. Francis Banker 227 ‘Those pickers are strictly for opening doors in emergencies,’ the locksmiths said.

1996 J. Davidson in D. C. Starzecka Maori Art & Culture i. 23 There are also awls and pickers of various kinds.

1710 T. Nairne Let. from S. Carolina 32 The Arms which every one is obliged to have..are a good Fusee,..a Cartridge-box..with at least 16 cartridges, a Sword, or Cutlass, Worm, Picker, spare Flints, &c.

1775 N.Y. Gaz. & Weekly Mercury 10 July 2/4 (advt.) He likewise draws..brushes and pickers for soldiers firelocks..and several other things in that way.

1828 D. M. Moir Life Mansie Wauch xii. 190 The piker for clearing the motion-hole.

1845 H. W. Herbert Warwick Woodlands 90 Let your hammer down, and give a smart tap to the under side of the breech, holding it uppermost, and you will never need a picker.

1880 T. Hardy Trumpet-major II. xxvii. 228 The..householders of the place,..duly equipped with pouches, cross-belts, firelocks, flintboxes, pickers, worms, magazines, priminghorns, heel-ball, and pomatum.

1937 Jrnl. Amer. Mil. Hist. Found. 1 33 The ‘picks’ or ‘pickers’ were often carried in the knapsack or cartridge box rather than on the chest.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Cueilleur,..a picker, chuser, or culler.

1652 W. Blith Eng. Improver Improved 245 You must get as many pickers as may overcome it before it strike in again at the very nick in the morning.

1763 Museum Rusticum 1 lx. 256 Pickers ready to gather up the roots as fast as they are thrown up by the spade.

1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 630 Such potatoes as may have escaped the pickers.

1887 S. D. Smedes Mem. Southern Planter v. 55 To get five hundred pounds [of cotton] a picker had to use both hands at once.

1920 Internat. Jrnl. Ethics 30 377 For example, the cherry pickers of unequal ability should exchange on the basis of quart picked for quart picked.

1937 Amer. Home Apr. 122/2 The well-trained pickers, their big tea baskets hanging from their necks, deftly single out the tender young shoots.

1992 D. Morgan Rising in West iii. xiv. 249 Government..provided support for pickers in the off season.

1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 750 A tool which has the title of a picker.

1884 Cassell's Family Mag. Feb. 189/2 The shaker or picker separates the tubers from the soil and delivers them to the rear of the machine.

1886 C. Scott Pract. Sheep-farming 69 A handy turnip hoe or picker, for picking up the shells of the roots.

1939 Appleton (Wisconsin) Post-Crescent 1 Nov. 11/5 The one-row picker results in a saving of at least one-third of the labor involved in the corn harvest.

1949 Time 28 Feb. 91/1 Seated at the controls of the big mechanical picker, he's like a man with a thousand hands, picking fabulous quantities of cotton in a single day.

1999 G. Kissick Winter in Volcano (2000) xiii. 123 [He] poked a long-handled picker into one of the tree's upper branches, positioned the blade around a mango stem, pulled the cord and caught the fruit in a sack.

1817 Times 19 May 1/1 J. Bramah and Sons..invite the pickers of locks to use their skill.., in order to give the fullest..opportunity of knowing whether the Patent Lock is one of substantial merit and adequate security.

1882 J. Southward Pract. Printing (1884) 600 The pickers are those who have the work of touching up electros.

1883 Stonemason Jan. The face of the rock is first disturbed by a ‘picker’ who, standing on a stage, clears away by blows from a pick delivered horizontally, a space..about 5 feet through.

1885 Sat. Rev. 21 Nov. 673/1 The Norfolk~men mostly use ‘picks’ formed of four broad blades..mounted on long slender poles to enable them to be thrust into the mud. The ‘picker’ notices the..bubbles.

1888 J. Payn Myst. Mirbridge xxi The law..is, moreover, itself a picker of locks.

1949 Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) 11 Sept. 20/6 (heading) Picker of locks a locksmith's wife.

1982 People (Nexis) 19 July 23 Griffin becomes a smooth picker of locks.

1869 Atlantic Monthly Nov. 562/2 'Lias, the fiddler, and the two ‘banjo-pickers’.

1934 S. R. Nelson All about Jazz vi. 126 The modern method of picking and slapping on the bass was found to be much more rhythmic. So a race of pickers and slappers..sprang into being.

1951 E. Paul Springtime in Paris (U.K. ed.) xi. 203 For many years, while the French were learning about jazz, no Frenchman except possibly Django Reinhardt, the guitar picker, could play it.

1976 National Observer (U.S.) 23 Oct. 20/3 It's not a novel story. Country music is rife with legend about pickers hitting Lower Broad with a nickel and a song.

1994 Bluegrass Canada Mag. Nov.–Dec. 28/3 The most interesting feature of this year's IBMA was the number of younger pickers performing and jamming.