A simple device, known as the John Boyd Picker, invented and patented in 1872 by John Boyd of Castle Cary, Somerset, England, to select a single length of horse hair at a time, picked up by a rapier, instead of a shuttle, and introduced into the warpshed during the manufacture of horse hair fabric. Until the Education Act of 1870 the selection of each horse hair had been done by hand by children.
Also a part of the picking mechanism of a loom that strikes the shuttle to propel it through the warp shed during the weaving process. See pick.
Also a machine used in cleaning and processing cotton fibre before spinning. See spinning.