cherry-pick

verb

Etymology: A metaphor, from the idea of picking through a bowl of cherries and seeking the best for oneself, or the idea of picking off the cherries for oneself from a cake or dessert.

1. To pick out the best or most desirable items from a list or group, especially to obtain some advantage or to present something in the best possible light.

   “Screeners can help you cherry-pick a promising group of stocks that meet your exact specifications.”

   “"We're not offering you a chance to cherry-pick the Caerphilly Zoo to fill in the gaps in your own collection.”

2. To select only evidence which supports an argument, and reject or ignore contradictory evidence.

   “From all the available statistics, the politician cherry-picked only those that backed up his ideas.”

   “The reason for this concentration is to attempt to alleviate the problems of fragmentation which usually accompany the study of retailing, particularly at the end of the early period, and has so often happened in the past, to curtail the temptation to 'cherry-pick' the best evidence from a wide, but not necessarily related, area.”

3. To position oneself near the opponent's goal to attempt to receive an errant or intentional pass for an easy score, as in basketball or versions of soccer where offsides are not enforced.
4. To broadcast selected programming from another network.

   “Those stations that will send CNN tapes of their local and regional news for CNN to cherry-pick from, in turn will be allowed to cherry-pick themselves.”

5. In source control, to commit selected changes from one branch to another.