Pickaxe

Etymology

The Oxford Dictionary of English states that both pick and pickaxe have the same meaning, that being a tool with a long handle at right angles to a curved iron or steel bar with a point at one end and a chisel or point at the other, used for breaking up hard ground or rock.

The term pickaxe is a folk etymology alteration of Middle English picas via Anglo-Norman piceis, Old French pocois, and directly from Medieval Latin picosa , related to Latin picus . Though modern picks usually feature a head with both a pointed end and an adze-like flattened blade on the other end, current spelling is influenced by axe, and pickaxe, pick-axe, or sometimes just pick cover any and all versions of the tool.

History

In prehistoric times a large shed deer antler from a suitable species (e.g. red deer) was often cut down to its shaft and its lowest tine and used as a one-pointed pick, and with it sometimes a large animal's shoulder blade as a crude shovel. During war in medieval times, the pickaxe was used as a weapon.

As a weapon

The historic pickaxe was readily adapted to a weapon for hand-to-hand combat in ancient times. Over the centuries aspects of it were incorporated in various battle axes.

A pickaxe handle (sometimes called a "pickhandle" or "pick helve") is sometimes used on its own as a club for bludgeoning. In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, pick handles were used against migrant farmers, and Georgia governor Lester Maddox famously threatened to use a similar, more slender axe handle to bar blacks from entering a whites-only restaurant in the heated days of the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. A pick handle is officially used as a baton in the British Army.

Pickaxes are commonly carried by Pioneer Sergeants in the British Army.

A normal pickaxe handle is made of ash or hickory wood and is about 3 ft and weighs about 2.5 lb. British Army pickaxe handles must, by regulation, be exactly 3 ft long, for use in measuring in the field. New variant designs are:

• With a plastic casing on the thick end.
• Made of carbon fibre

They are sometimes made with a steel casing on the thick end.

References

References

1. {{MW. pickax
2. (2006). "Oxford Dictionary of English". Oxford Univ. Press.
3. {{MerriamWebsterDictionary. Pickax
4. {{OEtymD. pickaxe
5. "Deer-antler pick, used in flint mining from Grimes Graves". ingenious.org.uk.
6. (3 October 2018). "Meet The Pioneer Sergeant: One Of The Few Army Ranks Allowed A Beard On Parade".