Meaning
To select only the best, easiest, or most favorable items from a larger set while passing over the rest; applied to facts, data, or evidence it carries a pejorative implication of biased, self-serving selection that distorts the overall picture. The neutral sense of simply choosing the best is also attested. Usually disapproving, especially of selective quotation and of statistics presented without context. Regional use: General English.
Origin
From the literal harvest image: pickers gathering cherries naturally take the ripest, plumpest fruit on the tree, so choosing only the choicest items became cherry-picking. The compound is 20th-century: Etymonline dates the figurative verb to 1959, first found implied in 'cherry-picking' in Billboard magazine, defining it as selecting the very best selfishly, while Merriam-Webster gives a first known use of 1965. From the 1960s the verb spread with its critical flavor into sports commentary, business, and above all statistics and science reporting, where 'cherry-picked data' means a favorable subset presented as if representative. The sources checked show no documented figurative use before the late 1950s; the harvest basis is a straightforward inference from the compound's parts and is not disputed.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- cherry-pick the data
- cherry-picked
- cherry-picker
- cherry-picking
Usage Examples
- The report cherry-picked the two quarters when sales rose and ignored the three when they fell.
- You can cherry-pick your examples, but the full dataset tells the opposite story.
- Recruiters cherry-picked only the top graduates and never contacted the remaining applicants.