"prick out" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It means to mark or point out something with a sharp tool or to select or remove something from a group of items by poking it out. It can also mean to transplant seedlings from a seedbed to a larger container or outdoor area. Example: I used a pin to prick out the location of the hidden treasure on the map. She carefully pricked out the thorns from the roses before arranging them in a vase. After germination, the seedlings were ready to be pricked out and transplanted into individual pots.
I'll say to a group of six-year-olds, "Can you just prick out those calendula?" and I'll turn round and it will be done beautifully.
He learned gardening there, helping his mother prick out seedlings as a child, and found he never wanted to do anything else.
Where Oliver once had to pick out oakum from old rope in the workhouse, he is now taught by Fagin's boys how to "prick out" identifying initials from stolen handkerchiefs.
I like to sow in trays and then prick out individual plants into 9-13cm pothathanghang out in a coldframe until I'm ready to plant out in late summer.
"Broner is disrespectful of me and all boxers and I don't really have much more to say, just that I will knock this prick out," said Rees, and when Broner accused him of being "ugly" there was a classic comeback from Rees: "That's not what your missus said".
Either prick out individual species or buy separate packets.
But as soon as they can be lifted, they should be pricked out into plugs.
The initials R, A and B surround a small heart that has been pricked out near the rim.
The poppies had been raised from autumn-sown seed, pricked out individually into trays of plugs, then planted out as baby seedlings from the plugs, before the roots began to resent their containment.
Once pricked out like this, our plants stay in their pots and spend their whole lives among the stray buttons, screws, corks and safety pins that experience has taught should never be thrown away.
They say you consume more calories chewing it than it returns, and certainly trenching, sowing, pricking out, planting, earthing up, harvesting and walking back to the kitchen will leave you with a World Bank's worth of calorific debt.
