† 1. = prec. 1. Obs.
1545. Rates Custome House, b j b. Ere pikers or tothe pikers of bone the groce xii d.
1591. Florio, 2nd Fruites, 61. I praie thee giue me a little stick, or a tooth picker.
1655. Culpepper, Riverius, VI. ii. 134. To preserve the Teeth, first clense them with a Tooth-picker of Mastich Wood.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), II. 185. Lentisc is a beautiful evergreen…; it makes the best Tooth-pickers in the World.
2. One who picks the teeth; in first quot. used of a bird which was fabled to pick the teeth of the crocodile; in second quot. with allusion to this.
1612. Webster, White Devil, IV. iii. Away flies the pretty tooth-picker from her cruell patient.
a. 1653. G. Daniel, Idyll., iii. 37. The Civetts of an Officer, Whose Tooth-picker, like ye Officious Bird Betrayes him Sleeping.
