A dictionary of Confusable Phrases: More Than 10,000 Idioms and Collocations

pick someone off • pick someone out
pick someone off —kill a person with a carefully aimed shot:
Two hundred marksmen have been assigned to a squad
designed to pick off snipers.
pick someone out—
1
. choose smb. from a group: I hoped to
be able to pick out the winner of the Grand National when
the weights appeared. 2. recognize a person among others:
Almost instantly, my searching eyes had picked her out in the
crowd.
pick someone’s brains • prey on someone’s mind
pick someone’s brains —get ideas or information about a sub-
ject by asking a person: I would love to pick your brains, so
to speak, and see what kind of innovative ideas you could
come up with.
Note: 
The expression does not correlate in meaning with the
phrase brain someone—(sl.) hit smb. hard on the head (often
used as a threat): The constable threatened to brain him if he
didn’t shut up.
prey on someone’s mind —(of anxieties, losses, etc.) afflict or
worry a person: When the servants had withdrawn, I found
that the unhappy result of the duel was still preying on his
mind.
pick something off • pick something out
pick something off —remove smth. by picking, scratching,
or plucking: Pick off all the feathers before you cook the duck.
pick something out—
1
. = pick something off: I was about to
put the duck in boiling water in order to pick out the feath-
ers…. 2. choose smth. from a group: We’ve picked out the
best toys and trinkets to give to dad this holiday. 3. recognize
or distinguish smth.: Do you need a wide panorama, or would
a telephoto be more useful to pick out distant detail?
pick something out of a hat • pull something out
of a hat
pick something out of a hat—select smth. completely at ran-
dom: When asked how they chose Juneau to be the state cap-
ital, she said, “I don’t know, I think they picked it out of a
hat.”
pull something out of a hat—produce smth. unexpected as
if by magic: If you want to help Thomas, you’ve got to argue
a lot of silly problems that he pulls out of a hat.