nutpick

English

Etymology 1

nut +‎ pick

Alternative forms

• nut pick

Noun

nutpick (plural nutpicks)

1. (US) A sharp tool used for digging the edible portion out of a nut.

See also

• nutcracker

Etymology 2

Blend of nut +‎ nitpick; see nut (“crazy person”). Coined by a commenter in 2006 and popularized by Kevin Drum.

Verb

nutpick (third-person singular simple present nutpicks, present participle nutpicking, simple past and past participle nutpicked)

1. (Internet) To cherry-pick poor representatives of a viewpoint (i.e., from Internet postings) in order to disparage it.
   • 2014 January 29, mistermix, “Notes from Last Night’s Putsch”, in Balloon Juice‎^[1]:

     Nutpicking has gotten easy over the last few years–just check out the Twitter feeds of Teanderthal Members of Congress.

   • [2018 April 23, Nate Silver, Twitter‎^[2]:

     The blog-era term "nutpicking", which refers to cherry-picking the worst or nuttiest comments to disparage a larger group ("liberals", "conservatives", "feminists") by falsely implying the views are widely-held within the group, needs to be revived. It's very common on Twitter.]

   • 2019 March 18, David French, “There’s a Fake Outrage Machine on the Right, Also”, in National Review‎^[3]:

     If there’s a right-wing analog to the Media Matters machine, it often comes in the ongoing effort to “nutpick” radical professors, highlight their most ridiculous (and often years-old) comments, and try to drive them out of their jobs.

Anagrams

• pintuck