Pickup Means a Truck, a Cartridge, an Improvement and a Line
A pickup is something picked up. The word covers vehicles, guitar components, economic recovery and chat-up lines.
A pickup is the act or means of picking something up. It has scattered into a remarkable range: an open-backed truck, the magnetic component under guitar strings, an improvement in trade, a stylus cartridge, and an attempt to start a romantic conversation. All descend from the plain phrasal verb *pick up*.
- An open-backed truck. *A pickup truck.*
- A guitar component. *A single-coil pickup.*
- An improvement. *A pickup in sales.*
- Pick up — to lift, learn or collect. *Pick up the pieces.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | pickup | A red pickup. |
| Plural | pickups | Two pickups. |
| Phrasal verb | pick up | Pick up the phone. |
| Compound | pickup truck | A pickup truck. |
| Related | pick | Pick a card. |
How it is used in a sentence
- A guitar pickup converts vibration to signal.Electromagnetically.
- There has been a pickup in orders.An increase.
- He picked up French quickly.Learned informally.
Senses of *pick up*
- Lift — pick up the box
- Collect — pick up the children
- Learn informally — pick up a language
- Improve — business picked up
- Detect — the radar picked it up
From the phrasal verb *pick up*. *Pick* comes from Old English and is related to *pike* and *peck*.
How does a guitar pickup work?
A magnet magnetises the steel string, and its vibration induces a current in a coil of wire, which becomes the audio signal.
Pickup or pick-up?
Both appear. The unhyphenated form is now more common for the noun, especially in American English.