Pickaxes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of hand tool featuring a heavy metal head with a sharp point on one end and a broad blade on the other, used for mining and breaking hard materials
2. A sturdy implement designed for breaking rock or digging, combining a pointed end for penetrating surfaces and a flat blade for prying
3. An essential tool in construction and mining, consisting of a long handle connected to a metal head used for excavation and material manipulation

Etymology: The pickaxe is a tool whose name carries two older tools inside it. Its history runs through Old French and Latin back to a Germanic word for a sharp point, the same ancestor that gave English "pike." In Latin, "picōsa" named the tool, and it was built on "picca," a pointed weapon or implement. The Old French forms "picois" and "pecois" passed into English in Middle English as "pikeyse" and "pikeys." Over time the word was reshaped. Speakers heard the first part as "pick," and the second part seemed to point to "axe," so forms such as "pykeaxe" and "pecaxe" took hold. The result is a word that sounds like a combination of two English tools, though its core came from a different direction entirely. Its doublets "pique" and "pike" show the same Germanic point-word arriving in English by separate routes.

Synonyms: pick, tool, digging instrument