lay vs pick up

lay

verb
  • To have sex with. 

  • To take a position; to come or go. 

  • To place down in a position of rest, or in a horizontal position. 

  • To don or put on (tefillin (phylacteries)). 

  • To place (new type) properly in the cases. 

  • To place and arrange (pages) for a form upon the imposing stone. 

  • To impose (a burden, punishment, command, tax, etc.). 

  • To produce and deposit an egg. 

  • To lie: to rest in a horizontal position on a surface. 

  • To apply; to put. 

  • To deposit (a stake) as a wager; to stake; to risk. 

  • To bet (that something is or is not the case). 

  • To point; to aim. 

  • To be in a horizontal position; to lie (from confusion with lie). 

  • To present or offer. 

  • simple past tense of lie when pertaining to position. 

  • To state; to allege. 

  • To impute; to charge; to allege. 

  • To put the strands of (a rope, a cable, etc.) in their proper places and twist or unite them. 

  • To install certain building materials, laying one thing on top of another. 

  • To prepare (a plan, project etc.); to set out, establish (a law, principle). 

noun
  • The direction a rope is twisted. 

  • A casual sexual partner. 

  • A lake. 

  • A ballad or sung poem; a short poem or narrative, usually intended to be sung. 

  • What was I, just another lay you can toss aside as you go on to your next conquest? 

  • Arrangement or relationship; layout. 

  • An act of sexual intercourse. 

  • A share of the profits in a business. 

  • A lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance. 

  • The laying of eggs. 

adj
  • Non-professional; not being a member of an organized institution. 

  • Not trumps. 

  • Not belonging to the clergy, but associated with them. 

pick up

verb
  • To meet and seduce somebody for romantic purposes, especially in a social situation. 

  • To acquire (something) accidentally; to catch (a disease). 

  • To collect and detain (a suspect). 

  • To lift; to grasp and raise. 

  • To clean up; to return to an organized state. 

  • To point out the behaviour, habits, or actions of (a person) in a critical manner; used with on. 

  • To receive calls; to function correctly. 

  • To record; to notch up. 

  • To learn, to grasp; to begin to understand; to realize. 

  • To promote somebody who was previously passed over. 

  • To collect an object, especially in passing. 

  • To answer a telephone. 

  • To take control (physically) of something. 

  • To mark, to defend against an opposition player by following them closely. 

  • To behave in a manner that results in a foul. 

  • To restart or resume. 

  • To receive (a radio signal or the like). 

  • To notice, detect or discern; to pick up on 

  • To improve, increase, or speed up. 

  • To reduce the despondency of. 

  • To pay for. 

  • To obtain and publish a story, news item, etc. 

  • To collect a passenger. 

How often have the words lay and pick up occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )