pickle
- 01 B1 Intermediate
n.a vegetable, especially a cucumber, that has been kept in vinegar or salt water to give it a strong, sour taste.
n.a vegetable, typically a cucumber, preserved in brine or vinegar. In North American English, the term usually refers specifically to a pickled cucumber.
Simple“He added a crunchy pickle to his ham sandwich for extra flavour.”
In context“The deli offers a variety of pickles, ranging from sweet bread-and-butter slices to spicy dill spears.”
Synonymsgherkinrelish - 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
n.a difficult or messy situation that is hard to get out of.
n.an informal figurative term for a predicament or a troublesome situation.
Simple“I'm in a bit of a pickle because I promised to be in two places at once.”
In context“The sudden cancellation of the primary contractor left the project manager in a real pickle regarding the autumn deadline.”
SynonymsAntonyms - 03 C1 Advanced
v.to turn a complex piece of computer data into a format that can be saved or sent easily.
v.to serialize a Python object into a byte stream for storage or transmission. This is a technical term specific to the Python programming language.
Simple“You can pickle the data to save your progress in the program.”
In context“The script will pickle the trained model and save it to the disk so it can be reloaded later without retraining.”
SynonymsserializemarshalAntonymsunpickledeserialize
From Middle English pikel (“spicy sauce served with meat or fish”), borrowed from Middle Dutch, Middle Low German pekel (“brine”). Cognate with Scots pikkill (“salt liquor, brine”), Saterland Frisian Piekele (“pickle, brine”), Dutch pekel (“pickle, brine”), Low German pekel, peckel, pickel, bickel (“pickle, brine”), German Pökel (“pickle, brine”), Icelandic pækill (“brine”).
Perhaps from Scottish pickle, apparently from pick + -le (diminutive suffix). Compare Scots pickil.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.