pickax

Or pick·axe

[pik-aks]

noun

plural

pickaxes 

1. a pick, especially a mattock.

verb (used with object)

pickaxed, pickaxing 

1. to cut or clear away with a pickax.

verb (used without object)

pickaxed, pickaxing 

1. to use a pickax.

Word History and Origins

Origin of pickax¹

1275–1325; pick ² + ax; replacing Middle English picois < Middle French, Old French; akin to French pic pick ². See pique ¹

Example Sentences

The store offers everything from basic tools to pan for gold in the river, such as pickaxes and scoops, to pinpointers and high-tech metal detectors that can cost thousands of dollars.

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Black also shows off his prop pickax and runs across the theater hyping up fans before the showing starts.

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The Gold Diggers logo featured a bearded man, who appeared to be a miner, carrying a pickax over his shoulder and wearing a headlamp with a baseball where the light should be.

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The carvings depict bighorn sheep, bisected circles and at one site, a miner swinging a pickax.

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The Californians who got seriously rich in the 1850s didn’t pick up pickaxes; they sold them, along with eggs and boots and soap to the men who did.

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