What does “picar” mean when it’s not about spice in Spanish?

Picar usually gets taught as “to sting” or “to be spicy,” but at the table it means something else entirely: to nibble, to graze, to eat in small bites instead of sitting down to a full meal. In this clip, a dad who claims he took his daughters out to eat gets caught having done exactly that himself all night — pica aquí y pica allá, “nibbling here, nibbling there,” snack by snack.

The food sense of picar is everywhere in Spanish-speaking kitchens: picar algo means to grab a bite, picotear is to nibble repeatedly, and picoteo or picadita describes a whole spread of small bites — the same logic behind Spain’s tapas culture. The “sting” and “spicy” meanings share the same root idea: something small and sharp making repeated contact, whether it’s teeth taking little bites or chili hitting your tongue.