Pickin

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Harvesting fruit, cotton or other crops by hand ; playing a stringed instrument by plucking its strings with the fingers ; selecting one item from among several options
2. Collecting produce from plants by hand in the field ; strumming or plucking strings on a guitar or banjo ; deciding on a particular thing from a range of possibilities
3. The act of gathering ripe crops from the plant ; sounding the strings of a guitar with the fingers rather than a strum ; choosing a single option out of many available

Etymology: "Pickin'" is the informal spelling of "picking," the present participle of "pick," used here in the sense of choosing one option from several. The dropped final g records the casual pronunciation. "Pick" entered Middle English, but its earlier origin is uncertain, so the verb's ancestry cannot be firmly traced.