Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. any form of drink that relieves the physical and mental state of the imbiber, esp. used for those concoctions advertised as curing hangovers.

1867		H. Latham Black and White 80: Who could induce the American loafer to drink home-brewed ale, when thirsty, instead of pick-me-ups .
1870		L. Oliphant Piccadilly 99: It was the ‘pick-me-up’ I always get at Harris’s, the apothecary in St. James’s Street.
1883		E.J. Milliken Childe Chappie’s Pilgrimage 53: Not e’en the ‘Boy’ can cheer me now, / And strongest ‘pick-me-ups’ are vain.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) I 301: His usual ‘pick me up’ consisting of a glass containing two thirds brandy and one third cayenne pepper.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 58: Pick-me-Up, a drink after a drinking bout.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 65: He begins to Push the Button and absorb the tall Pick-Me-Ups.
1906		Marvel 10 Mar. 173: I really must have a pick-me-up.
1910		Wodehouse Psmith in the City (1993) 156: In any case, it is safest to have a pick-me-up handy.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 28 June 9/4: They Say [...] That [T]hey nearly dropped dead with shock and had to have a whiskey each for a pick-me-up .
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 268: In his Day, the Booze-Clerk was Pythias to every Damon who came in for a Pick-me-Up.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 117: That celebrated chemist in Piccadilly whose pick-me-ups are known from Singapore to Alaska.
1938		W. Watson Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (2000) 143: That calls for a pick-me-up. I want a drink.
1949		Wodehouse Mating Season 6: Not so sensationally good as those pick-me-ups of yours.
1953		F. Paley Rumble on the Docks (1955) 234: He was going to have his lunch out today. He could use a pick-me-up.
1958		H.E. Bates Darling Buds of May (1985) 38: My God, this is the perfick pick-me-up [...] We must all have another one of those.
1960		H.E. Bates When the Green Woods Laugh (1985) 234: He needed a real blinder of a pick-me-up to restore his sanity.
1971		Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves 51: Excellent for a hangover, though not of course to be compared with Jeeves’s patent pick-me-up.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 178: Needed a pick-me-up. Place was full of coffee only it was all in beans.
2000		I. Rankin Set in Darkness 353: Never drunk one? Perfect pick-me-up.

2. a person, object or place that has a similar effect.

1868		Sportsman 29 July 2/1: Notes on News [...] To those of our readers who are inclined to despair as to their life-chances, we humbly beg to recommend, as a moral ‘pick-me-up,’ following delicious bit of optimist ‘gag’.
1910		Sporting Times 1 Jan. 11/1: A rare pick-me-up is Deal!
1922		Joyce Ulysses 48: Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a pickmeup. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders and yellow stockings.
2000		M. Amis Experience 87: Putting a lightbulb down the wastemaster was his most dependable pick-me-up.

3. (Aus./S.Afr.) an ambulance.

1902

J.H.M. Abbott Tommy Cornstalk 108: There were, of course, signs and omens that might point to an engagement, as, for instance, when the ‘Pick-me-ups’ (ambulance wagons) followed close up to the firing line. But, as a rule, it was never safe to prophesy an action until the first Boer shell came howling overhead.

4. a drug having the same effect as sense 1.

1952		(con. 1920s) ‘Harry Grey’ Hoods (1953) 54: We’ll take a quick pick-me-up. We’ll go over the Joey’s place and kick the gong around.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 287: Mr Kavanagh is not the in the habit of substance abuse and had no illegal pick-me-ups for the officer in question.

5. (S.Afr., also pick-up) a police van, a black maria.

1959

H. Bloom Transvaal Episode 15: They [i.e. black township people] called their Black Marias ‘pick-up vans’. [Ibid.] 281: Why don’t we just sling her into the pick-up and stop all this arguing?