Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) a casual sex partner, met and seduced without previous introduction.

1871		L.H. Bagg Four Years at Yale 46: Pick-up, a streetwalker, of the less disreputable sort.
1879		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 6 Dec. 3/1: Hardly a day passes but a report comes [...] that a too suceptible Granger has been roped into the den of one of these pick-ups.
1921		Broadway Brevities Dec 14/1: We’ve personally seen a dozen pick-ups in as many minutes in the Astor corridors.
1928		R. Carr Rampant Age 323: Imagine meeting the father of a hot little sidewalk pick-up!
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 626: Love was one thing, and a good time with a stray pick-up was another.
1943		Common Sense May 147: They aren’t professional bad girls, these ‘victory girls’ and ‘cuddle bunnies’ who raise the truancy rate in high school, go uniform hunting in every railroad station, wandering arm-in-arm down Main Street late at night looking for pick-ups.
1958		R. Chandler Playback 13: She made the Vermilyea look like a pick-up.
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 87: They were seldom pickups or brothel loan-outs, but ladies who had earned the trust of their law-breaking males.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 125: Eugene and his pickup won the twist contest.
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 43: If he was a homosexual looking for a pick-up, why had he not gone to one of the more recognised meeting places.
1993		J. Green It 169: You can get into this sort of thing with pickups, if you go to the right kind of bar [...] Of course you don't know whether you can trust the guy [...] but that in itself has its own frisson.
1998		P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 64: I wonder what he works at now, this latest pick-up chappie of mine?
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 63: They [...] looked (and leered) round the joint for a bit of easy pick-up that wouldn’t mind a booze-stinking one-night stand.
2017		V. McDermid Insidious Intent (2018) 112: ‘So you think the whole lovey-dovey atmosphere might have made Kathryn an easier pick-up?’.

(b) the act of meeting someone in informal circumstances, usu. with a sexual relationship in mind.

1898		F. Dumont Dumont’s Joke Book 110: She won’t be home until she makes a ‘pick-up’.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 144: Pick Up.– [...] a solicitation for immoral purposes.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 163: She was a little frightened and excited. It was no better than a pick-up.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 238: Buzz [...] generally made his pickups at the arcade on Market Street.

(c) an arrest but no subsequent criminal charge; thus (S.Afr.) pick-up van, a police van; note also sense 2b.

1908		J.M. Sullivan Criminal Sl. 18: Pickup, an arrest followed by no charge of crime.
1934		L. Berg Prison Nurse (1964) 82: Red Mike achieved the enviable distinction of having 20 ‘pick-ups’ on his record and not a single conviction.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 156/2: Pick-up, n. An arrest on suspicion with no formal charges preferred.

(d) someone met in informal circumstances; sex may be involved, but not invariably.

1928		R. Fisher Walls Of Jericho 257: You can’t be really liking me after I let you pick me up – yes, that’s what it was, a pick-up.
1931		W.N. Burns One-Way Ride 25: A light flirtation with one of these slick-tongued rascals, a pick-up joy ride, a lark in a dance hall or cabaret, and the young woman suddenly found herself a prisoner.

(a) robbery, theft; thus at the pick-up, on the pick-up, working as a professional thief.

1863		Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: We found a committe [...] consisting of pick-pockets and pimps, on the ‘pick-up’.
1928		Detective Fiction Weekly 8 Sept. 564/2: [heading] International crooks I have known; No. 6 – ‘Gentleman George’, pick-up man.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 8: Pickup: A good case of stealing from carts.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 240: He had been persuaded to try his hand at ‘the pick-up’ (stealing from unattended motor cars).
1962		Gross’s Criminal Investigation (5th edn) viii 206: At the pick-up, suitcase stealing.
1973		C. Himes ‘Baby Sister’ [screenplay] in Black on Black 26: The dope pushers are scared to show up at the poolroom [...] the number writers are scared to operate, the pickup men don't dare show themselves.

(b) an unaffiliated villain, prob. unsuccessful, who can be recruited for any criminal undertakiung.

1908

A. Stringer Under Groove 8: [A] broken-down pick-up named Sherwood, who'd pounded the brass on one of the Chicago pool-room barges.

(c) an arrest; an arrest warrant; note also sense 1c.

1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 413: Pick-up. Arrest.
1930		D. Ahearn How to Commit a Murder 214: I knew he would get a pickup.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
1948		R.L. Bellem ‘Death Ends the Scene’ Hollywood Detective May 🌐 And flash out a pickup order on Benny Bradborough [Ibid.] I mean the cops have got your name and there’s a pickup out on you.
1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 171: There was a pickup on him for murder one.
1969		C. Himes Blind Man with a Pistol (1971) 39: I’ll put out a pickup for the suspect.
1977		B. Davidson Collura (1978) 52: All ‘pickups’ were being held in abeyance for Collura’s crucial ‘B’ buy on Chuck, the ‘main man’.
2001		G. Pelecanos Right As Rain 112: That Sherman Coles pickup do you in?

(d) payment for undertaking a criminal job.

1938

D. Runyon ‘Situation Wanted’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 659: Benny will wish to have Cy taken care of immediately and that will be a nice quick pickup for me.

(e) (UK Und.) a criminal who specializes in taking unguarded luggage, e.g. at railway stations.

1941

V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 206: The ‘pick-ups’ are on the prowl night and day, in stations, streets and bus-yards, on trains, boats and omnibuses.

(f) (US black/und.) money as earned by a prostitute and then regularly handed over to her pimp.

1948

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 17 Jan. 21: Pimps [...] grope their way to the designated places [...] to make their ‘pickup’ collections.

(a) (drugs) a dose or injection of narcotics; the feeling that follows.

1936		D. Maurer ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 1 in AS XI:2 125/1: pickup. The exhilaration following an injection of narcotics, especially a vein shot [...] picked up. Under the immediate influence of narcotics.
1938		D. Maurer ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in AS XIII:3 106/2: pick-up. 1. A ration of narcotics, usually injected.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

(b) a restorative drink.

1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 1100: Well, Mary, if you have a need for a pickup during the day.
1936		C. Woolrich ‘Dilemma of the Dead lady’ in Penzler Pulp Fiction (2007) 51: He felt the need of a good, stiff pick-up.