pickaxe

Forms

• pickax (US)

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pikeis, also pikois and picas,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman pikeis, also picois and Old French picois,^[5][4][6][2] formed from pic (“pickaxe”) with a suffix of uncertain origin.^[5] The Old French word is recorded from the second half of the 12th century,^[5] and the Anglo-Norman word from 1160–74;^[7] Etymonline's 11th-century date is earlier.^[8] Barnhart and the American Heritage Dictionary add Medieval Latin picōsa (“pickaxe”) as a further source, and the OED compares picoisa, frequent in British sources from 1167.^[4][9][8][5] The American Heritage Dictionary, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged take that Old French noun from Latin pīcus (“woodpecker”), with the first of them calling this probable,^[9][4][3] while Weekley and Chambers connect the word with piquer (“to pierce”).^[10][11] The ending was later reshaped by folk etymology as if the tool were a kind of axe,^{[5][8][6][3][12]} and its first part was read as pick or pike;^[5] compare Anglo-Norman hache a pyk, recorded in 1300.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tool for breaking up ground: the OED's first record is from 1256, in a document cited by L. F. Salzman,^[5] and Barnhart also gives picas for 1256.^[4] The Middle English Dictionary's first quotation is picoyc, from an account of 1279,^[2] which Barnhart dates to 1278.^[4] Forms reshaped after axe are found from the 15th century.^[4][8][3]

Semantic evolution

Medieval writers did not always keep the tool distinct from others: the Middle English Dictionary notes that it is often identified with a mattock, spade or hoe,^[2] and Mannyng's lines, Mattok is a pykeys, Or a pyke, as sum men seys, make the same equation.^[2] In Piers Plowman it appears beside the plough and the spade.^[2] The form with -axe suggested a kind of axe, and Johnson (1755), who derived the word from pick and axe, defined it as an axe made not to cut but to pierce.^[13] From 1614 it was also used attributively for something resembling the tool, especially the bill of a bird.^[5] The verb, formed from the noun, is recorded from 1800.^[5][14]

Timeline

• 1256 – picas, a tool for breaking up ground.^[5][4]
• 1428 – pecaxe, a form reshaped after the word for an axe, with pycax following in 1494.^[4]
• 1614 – adjective, resembling a pickaxe, especially of a bird's bill.^[5]
• 1800 – verb, to break or work at with a pickaxe, in the Gentleman's Magazine; used without an object from 1876.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tool with a long handle set at right angles to a curved metal head, which has a point at one end and a point or blade at the other, used for breaking up hard ground or rock: The workers broke through the frozen soil with a pickaxe.^{[5][12][11][8]}

Adjective

1. Resembling a pickaxe, especially of a bird's bill.^[5]

Verb

1. To break up or dig with a pickaxe: They pickaxed the old pavement away.^[3][5][12]
2. To work with a pickaxe.^[3][5][14]

Related words

• pick
• pike
• axe
• magpie

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged enters the word as pickax, with pickaxe as a variant.^[3]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
12. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press