Meaning & use
hand-pick
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To choose a person or thing carefully and personally from a larger group because they are especially suitable.
Grammar: Takes an object: she hand-picked the winners.
Patterns
- hand-pick someone for something
- hand-pick something from something
The director hand-picked every actor in the cast.
She hand-picked three students for the exchange program.
The coach hand-picked his team after a long tryout.
verbtransitive
To gather fruit, vegetables or other crops by hand, rather than using a machine.
Grammar: Takes an object, often a crop: they hand-pick the grapes.
Patterns
- hand-pick a crop
Workers hand-pick the tea leaves every morning.
The farm hand-picks its berries to avoid bruising them.
We hand-picked a basket of apples on Sunday.
Word forms
| third person singular | hand-picks |
|---|---|
| past tense | hand-picked |
| past participle | hand-picked |
| -ing form | hand-picking |
Common combinations
- hand-picked team
- He led a hand-picked team to the summit.
- hand-pick a successor
- The founder hand-picked his successor.
- hand-picked ingredients
- The menu uses hand-picked ingredients from local farms.
- hand-pick for
- She was hand-picked for the leadership role.
Synonyms and how they differ
- select
- Select is neutral and formal, while hand-pick stresses personal, careful choice.
- cherry-pick
- Cherry-pick often sounds critical, meaning to take only the best or most convenient items, but hand-pick is positive.
- choose
- Choose is the everyday word for deciding, whereas hand-pick suggests a small, carefully made decision.
- harvest
- Harvest means gathering crops in general, while hand-pick specifies doing it without a machine.
Opposites
Word family
- hand-picked adjective
- chosen with great care
- hand noun
- the part of the body at the end of the arm
- pick verb
- to choose or gather
- handpicking noun
- the act of choosing or gathering by hand
Commonly confused: hand-pick or handpick?
hand-pick vs handpick
Handpick is a less common variant spelling without the hyphen, so use one form consistently.
Practice
Which sentence uses hand-pick in the sense of choosing carefully?
Choose one answer.
Hand-pick needs an object that is chosen from a group, so the first option works; the others lack a sensible object or use the wrong structure.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hand-pick”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.