pick up vs put down

pick up

verb
  • To pay for. 

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

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

  • To collect a passenger. 

put down

verb
  • To pay. 

  • To drop someone off, or let them out of a vehicle. 

  • To euthanize (an animal). 

  • To make prices, or taxes, lower. 

  • To terminate a call; to hang up. 

  • To give something as a reason for something else. 

  • To add a name to a list. 

  • To insult, belittle, or demean. 

  • To halt, eliminate, stop, or squelch, often by force. 

  • To land. 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see put, down. 

  • To execute (a person), especially extrajudicially. 

  • To write (something). 

  • To place a baby somewhere to sleep. 

  • To cease, temporarily or permanently, reading (a book). 

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