Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) posing as a prostitute but actually luring a victim into the hands of a male companion, who would beat and rob him.

1861		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 5 Oct. 5/4: Sarah Todd [...] travels nights on the pick up.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 53/1: He had a ‘moll’ who went out on the ‘picking-up lay’. [...] The only means of living he had was by his ‘moll,’ who went out at night on the ‘pick-up lay’.

(UK Und.) a woman who poses as a prostitute only to rob or lure a victim into the hands of her male companion, who would beat and rob him.

1851		Bristol Times & Mirror 22 Mar. 6/6: I should describe the female as what we call ‘a picking-up moll,’ a girl who watches for men and picks them up [...] when they’ve got a little drop too much.
1851		Liverpool Mercury 14 Jan. 38/2: I have been associated with another man in keeping a ‘picking up woman’ but I did not get nearly so much by it [...] That kind of street robbery in which a picking-up woman is the usual accomplice, and in which violence is resorted to in the event of resistance.
1857		Derry Jrnl 4 Mar. 4/3: A picking-up Moll, ‘whose [...] avocation is to decoy men [...] into dark passages or lonely roads, where the ‘bludgetter’ performs his work of spoilation.
1863		Once a Week 14 Nov. 569/2: A woman is always the principal actor in these cases, and she is called the ‘picking-up moll’ [...] She is accompanied by a man who is called the ‘stick or bludgeon’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 5/1: The remainder, who were good for nothing else, were engaged as ‘bludgets’ by the ‘picking-up molls’.
1889		Clarkson & Richardson Police! 348: ‘Picking-up molls’ [...] are ‘put on’ to old ‘swells’ who are the worse for drink, or farmers and other who may be in the same condition, and having got them into corners or secluded places, ease them of their money and watches. Should an outcry be made, their ‘guns,’ or ‘bullies,’ come to their help.

(US police/NYPD) an arrest (usually for a drug, morals or gambling offense) made spontaneously, not as the result of an investigation.

1972

J. Mills Report to the Commissioner: in Glossary xv: .

working as a street prostitute.

1856

Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 11 Oct. n.p.: Is Marcia Page on the pick-up now?

1. to accost the potential victim of a confidence trick.

1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 8: One Set, just as they got into the Fair, picked up a Flat, and got twenty Pounds of him.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 257: Among gamblers, it is called picking up a flat, or a mouth: sharpers, who are daily on the look-out for some unwary countryman or stranger, use the same phrase; and among drop-coves, and others who act in concert, this task is allotted to one of the gang, duly qualified, who is thence termed the picker-up; and he having performed his part, his associates proceed systematically in cleaning out the flat.
1824		Compl. Hist. Murder Mr Weare 218: Mr. Weare was one of this number — he was what is termed in the Sporting World a dead nail — a complete sharper — ready at all times to pick up a flat.
1851		Bristol Mercury 12 July 8/5: He had been [...] going to Cremorne-gardens to ‘pick up a flat’ [and] packed the cards so as to assist the others in carrying out their scheme of plunder.
1871		Clerkenwell News 24 May 4/1: Another of the many cases in which a couple of sharps ‘pick up a flat’.

2. of a prostitute, to meet a client.

a.1790		Busy Bee ‘Flash Man of St. Giles’s.’ She pick’d up the flats as they passed by [F&H].
1844		Ulster Gaz. 30 Dec. 4/2: I was so arnest [sic] to pick up a flat I hadn’t looked.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 6/1: She was very good-looking, and would often ‘pick up’ a ‘flat’ who would not ‘stand’ the ‘kid’ of more experienced ‘molls’.
1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 318: Loose women are admitted [...] on the chance that she will, in the course of the evening, ‘pick up a flat’.

3. (UK Und.) of a pickpocket, to find a (prosperous) victim.

1840

London City Mission Mag. V 45: God help you, Sir! why T— will sometimes have a dozen touches, and four or five dips, before he can pick up a flat, and then perhaps not earn more than a shilling.

1. to notice, to understand.

1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 15: Let me boot you to my play and, maybe, you can pick up on the issue.
1953		L. Durst Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 6: Kitties pick up on this riff by C. It’s a gas, righteous beats and upstate muggin makes this cool Jim all the way uptown, let’s dig.
1981		M. Baker Nam (1982) 34: I take all my clothes off [...] Everyone else goes to bed with their clothes on, but I’m not picking up on nothing.
1991		J.B. Holway Josh & Satch 1: Satch made a mental note of the publicity Joe got, and [baseball team executive Bill] Veeck picked up on it.
2012		W.D. Myers Cruisers: A Star is Born 73: Bobbi picked up on a lot of things that other people didn’t.

2. to get hold of, usu. drugs but also people.

1949		W. Burroughs letter 13 Oct. in Harris (1993) 54: I myself have been strictly on a lush kick despite every opportunity to pick up on anything and everything.
1957		C. Himes Imabelle 37: ‘Have you picked up on a new team, Jack?’ ‘Pitching what?’ ‘The Blow’.
1958		W. Motley Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) 211: If you want to pick up on pot, on bennies, pick up on any kind of dope.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore 143: Pick up on – Of a drug addict, to get the usual dose.

3. to visit, esp. for the purpose of obtaining something.

1953		L. Durst Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 7: Before I come on with the gas I’ve got to pick up on a barber because my rug needs much dusting after I get with the moss snatcher the nob will be in great shape.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 221: We’ll go pick up on these two rich queers I know.

1. to recover from an illness, esp. to begin eating after a period of fasting.

1827		De Quincy ‘Murder, considered as one of the fine arts’ in Blackwood’s Feb. 202/1: The amateur, from looking bilious and sulky, by too close an attention to virtue, begins to pick up his crumbs, and general hilarity prevails.
1854		A.E. Baker Northants Words & Phrases 163: He begins to pick up his crumbs, i.e. He is improving either in health or circumstances.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 125: Crumbs ‘to pick up one’s crumbs,’ to begin to have an appetite after an illness; to improve in health, circumstances, &c., after a loss thereof.
1873		Sl. Dict.

2. to begin enjoying improved circumstances.

1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p: He has picked up his crumbs finely of late; he has grown very fat, or rich, of late.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1854		see sense 1.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1870		Temple Bar Nov. 214: Our Alexander Farnese, however, continued to pick up his crumbs under the literary and voluptuary Medic.

(US gay) of a male prostitute, to accept a minimal sum for one’s services.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 55: pick up pennies to be fucked for a mere pittance.

(gay) to permit oneself to be sodomized.

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 35: pick up the soap (for) (v.): To allow pedication. Also, the term ‘To play drop the soap’ is still heard aboard ships of the U.S. Navy, meaning to engage in pedication. (Slang.).
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 148: pick up the soap (fr naut sl) to be fucked.
1999		Guardian G2 24 Aug. 16: Something that could force you to pick up the soap in the prison shower for 14 years.

to establish a relationship.

1881		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 8 Mar. 7/4: ‘Deerfoot,’ the hunchbacked chap, who had ‘picked up’ with Ginger’s ‘wife’ when Ginger was in gaol.
1969		L. Hadow Full Cycle 208: ‘See she’s picked up with that shearer,’ the old woman remarked, her usual spleen corroding the words. ‘Pretty couple they make.’.