cherry-pickv.
/ˈtʃɛrɪpɪk/, U.S. /ˈtʃɛriˌpɪk/ colloquial.
transitive. To choose selectively (the most beneficial or profitable items, opportunities, etc.) from what is available. Also intransitive. Cf. earlier cherry-picker n. 3.
ΚΠ
1966 Times 23 July 1/2 The agreement is now in force. We cannot cherry-pick any part of it.
1972 Encycl. Brit. Yearbk. 733/1 Cherrypick vb., to register new voters in an area where they are likely to be of the registrar's own party.
1975 Business Week (Nexis) 19 May 128 Many customers are trading down to cheaper brands. Others are doing more ‘cross-shopping’ from store to store, cherry-picking the specials.
1987 Observer 13 Sept. 32/6 It did not want the whole team, preferring to cherrypick the stars.
1991 Kiplinger's Personal Finance Mag. Oct. 66/3 Small groups don't have enough people to spread the risk, so insurers cherry-pick.
2001 Wired Sept. 79/1 Music consumers are cherry-picking songs like Shaggy's ‘It Wasn't Me’, not downloading whole albums.
Derivatives
ˈcherry-picked adj.
ΚΠ
1983 Discount Store News 21 Feb. 20/2 Among those standing pat on their programs for 1983 are..Pamida, whose tight, cherry-picked program will stay the same.
1998 Daily News (N.Y.) (Nexis) 24 Aug. 35 CBS has taken the extraordinary step of plucking a radio guy to challenge NBC's ‘Saturday Night Live’ and building his show on cherry-picked bits from the radio.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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v.1966