Cherry-pick

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To pick out the best or most desirable items from a list or group, especially to obtain some advantage or to present something in the best possible light. idiomatic

    "Screeners can help you cherry-pick a promising group of stocks that meet your exact specifications."

  2. 2
    To select only evidence which supports an argument, and reject or ignore contradictory evidence. broadly, rhetoric

    "From all the available statistics, the politician cherry-picked only those that backed up his ideas."

  3. 3
    To position oneself near the opponent's goal to attempt to receive an errant or intentional pass for an easy score, as in basketball or versions of soccer where offsides are not enforced. US, idiomatic
  4. 4
    To broadcast selected programming from another network. US, idiomatic

    "Those stations that will send CNN tapes of their local and regional news for CNN to cherry-pick from, in turn will be allowed to cherry-pick themselves."

  5. 5
    In source control, to commit selected changes from one branch to another.

Synonyms

All synonyms
cream the cropcull

Example

More examples

"In this era of post-truth politics, it's easy to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you desire."

Etymology

A metaphor, from the idea of picking through a bowl of cherries and seeking the best for oneself, or the idea of picking off the cherries for oneself from a cake or dessert.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.