picker

Everyday

1. A person who picks fruit, vegetables, flowers or cotton, often as a job. tree →
2. A person or tool that picks or chooses something: a litter picker, a nose picker (rude, joking). tree →
3. (work) A person in a warehouse who collects items for orders. tree →

In the lessons

In geography and social studies, fruit pickers do seasonal farm work (strawberry picking in the UK, fruit picking in Australia and New Zealand for backpackers). At school, a «litter picker» is a grabbing tool for collecting rubbish safely. In history, cotton pickers in the US South were often enslaved people. Phrases: «fruit picker», «litter picker», «cotton picker», «grape picker».

Examples

• Strawberry pickers start work very early in summer. tree →
• We used litter pickers to clean the playground. tree →
• My cousin worked as a fruit picker in Queensland. tree →
• The machine is a cotton picker that harvests whole fields. tree →
• Grape pickers fill baskets in the vineyard. tree →
• «Stop it, you nose picker!» laughed my little brother. tree →
• Warehouse pickers collect the things people order online. tree →
• Every bush was weighted to the ground with the largest, dark red, ripe raspberries, such a wealth of berries as two little berry pickers had never found before! tree →

Note

Countable: a picker, pickers. From the verb «pick» + -er (a person or tool that does it). Related: «picky» (fussy about food). «Nose picker» is a cheeky, mildly rude joke.