"pick of the litter" meaning in English

See pick of the litter in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-pick of the litter.ogg [Australia] Forms: picks of the litter [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|picks of the litter}} pick of the litter (plural picks of the litter)
  1. (idiomatic) The best person or item in a group; the best that one has to offer. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: best of the bunch Related terms: cream of the crop Translations (best in group): valioyksilö (Finnish), haut du panier [masculine] (French)
    Sense id: en-pick_of_the_litter-en-noun-ZkK7sX1i Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for pick of the litter meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "runt"
    },
    {
      "word": "runt of the litter"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "picks of the litter",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "picks of the litter"
      },
      "expansion": "pick of the litter (plural picks of the litter)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Of the books I read this summer, A Tale of Two Cities was the pick of the litter.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, “Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced”, in Blackout, performed by Dropkick Murphys",
          "text": "I'll take the pick of the litter, girls jockey for me / I don't need these lines to get laid",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017 November 7, Aja Romano, “The unlikely breakout star of Stranger Things 2 is unlikelier babysitter Steve Harrington”, in Vox",
          "text": "In the first season of Stranger Things, no character was more extra than Steve Harrington — Nancy Wheeler’s frequently possessive, largely confused, often douchey boyfriend. Though he eventually got with the program and helped fight some monsters, he wasn’t exactly what you’d call the pick of the litter.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The best person or item in a group; the best that one has to offer."
      ],
      "id": "en-pick_of_the_litter-en-noun-ZkK7sX1i",
      "links": [
        [
          "best",
          "best"
        ],
        [
          "person",
          "person"
        ],
        [
          "item",
          "item"
        ],
        [
          "group",
          "group"
        ],
        [
          "offer",
          "offer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) The best person or item in a group; the best that one has to offer."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "cream of the crop"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "best of the bunch"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "best in group",
          "word": "valioyksilö"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "best in group",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "haut du panier"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pick of the litter.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c5/En-au-pick_of_the_litter.ogg/En-au-pick_of_the_litter.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/En-au-pick_of_the_litter.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pick of the litter"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "runt"
    },
    {
      "word": "runt of the litter"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "picks of the litter",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "picks of the litter"
      },
      "expansion": "pick of the litter (plural picks of the litter)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "cream of the crop"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Of the books I read this summer, A Tale of Two Cities was the pick of the litter.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, “Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced”, in Blackout, performed by Dropkick Murphys",
          "text": "I'll take the pick of the litter, girls jockey for me / I don't need these lines to get laid",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017 November 7, Aja Romano, “The unlikely breakout star of Stranger Things 2 is unlikelier babysitter Steve Harrington”, in Vox",
          "text": "In the first season of Stranger Things, no character was more extra than Steve Harrington — Nancy Wheeler’s frequently possessive, largely confused, often douchey boyfriend. Though he eventually got with the program and helped fight some monsters, he wasn’t exactly what you’d call the pick of the litter.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The best person or item in a group; the best that one has to offer."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "best",
          "best"
        ],
        [
          "person",
          "person"
        ],
        [
          "item",
          "item"
        ],
        [
          "group",
          "group"
        ],
        [
          "offer",
          "offer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) The best person or item in a group; the best that one has to offer."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pick of the litter.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c5/En-au-pick_of_the_litter.ogg/En-au-pick_of_the_litter.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/En-au-pick_of_the_litter.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "best of the bunch"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "best in group",
      "word": "valioyksilö"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "best in group",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "haut du panier"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pick of the litter"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.