1. To take and lift upward; SYN. lift up, gather up.
2. To take up by hand
3. To lift out or reflect from a background, as of a color
4. To receive perceptual input: receive a signal, receive news, receive a verdict, etc.; SYN. receive.
5. To give a passenger or a hitchhiker a lift.
6. To get in addition, as an increase
7. To buy casually or spontaneously
8. To meet someone for sexual purposes
9. When the speed, level, or condition of something increases or improves, it picks up.

1. When you pick something up, you lift it with your hand.
2. When you go to a place to get something that was created, prepared, or left for you and is now ready, you pick it up.
3. When you pick people up, you stop your vehicle and give them a ride away from that place.
4. When you pick something up in a store, you quickly go into a store to buy something you need.
5. When you pickup a skill, you learn it easily.
6. When you resume doing something at the point where you stopped doing it earlier, you pick up at that point.
7. When you pick up a radio or television station or a certain frequency on a receiver, you are able to tune it to that station or frequency.
8. When the police or other authorities arrest people, they pick them up.
9. When you get something by chance without looking for it, you pick it up.
10. When you pick up the check or the tab (a tab is a list of money that someone owes) in a restaurant or other place, you pay it.
11. When you pick up a place that is messy, you organize or tidy it.

When you pick up members of the opposite sex, you approach and successfully interest them in a sexual or romantic encounter.