pickaxe

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a heavy tool with a long handle and a pointed metal head, used for breaking hard ground or rock

   The workers used a pickaxe to break the dry clay.

2. 2
   verb

   to break or dig with a pickaxe

   They pickaxed the old concrete path into pieces.

From Middle English forms such as pykeaxe, reshaped by association with pick and axe. Earlier forms trace through Old French and Latin words for a pointed tool.

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