Basic Guidelines For English Spellings
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noun
(also US pickax)
another term for pick (sense 1)
‘He believes that a 17-year-old youth was paid to smash the windows of three of his vehicles with pickaxes and hammers.’
- ‘Cranes and bulldozers were brought in to clear the streets while 18 teams of rescue workers dug with pickaxes and shovels.’
- ‘Then our youngest officer managed to stretch out his arm and use a pickaxe to move the stone the dog was lodged behind.’
- ‘Weapons recovered include a pickaxe, a handaxe, two hammers, a spade, eight baseball bats, a cricket bat, six long-blade knives and an assortment of small knives.’
- ‘A neighbourhood menace who threatened police with a pickaxe could soon be free again instead of serving the two-year jail sentence his crime merited, a court heard.’
- ‘In thinner coal seams miners would have to hack out coal with a pickaxe while lying on their sides.’
- ‘A soldier who needed emergency surgery after a pickaxe was lodged in his skull has taken his first steps since the alleged attack.’
- ‘One of the most seriously injured was felled by a pickaxe.’
- ‘Officers found a pickaxe, shovel without a handle and crowbar.’
- ‘The following Saturday I arrived alone, armed with a pickaxe, spade and a selection pack of buffet pork pies.’
- ‘She also appeared before magistrates for brandishing a pickaxe during an argument with her boyfriend.’
- ‘Only belatedly was it discovered that a drain in a workhouse near the well had been accidentally ruptured by a pickaxe.’
- ‘The pickaxe Stephen used was stamped with the name of the local council for security reasons.’
- ‘Besides drink and foodstuffs the pack trains brought in the pickaxes, shovels and other ironware that the miners required when sinking shafts to reach bedrock.’
- ‘It took six hours for his men to row out there and attack the rocks with pickaxes and another six to row back.’
- ‘He carries a pickaxe in his left hand and holds a lighted torch aloft in his right.’
- ‘Items on the list include skip hire, digger, rotavator, topsoil, compost, bark, spades, forks, shovels, trowels, pickaxes, watering cans, trees, flowers, shrubs and vegetables.’
- ‘Construction projects in Kenya can be long and gruelling: foundations are dug with pickaxes and even cement must mixed by hand.’
- ‘They dig through the debris by hand or with pickaxes and shovels, in hopes of finding anyone alive.’
- ‘He thought it was a stick or the handle of a pickaxe.’
verb
(also US pickax)
[with object]Break or strike with a pickaxe.
‘Exposed to the boiling sun of the tropic region, he pickaxed and carried earth on a pole for 7 years, not having proper rests.’- ‘He pickaxed a deep hole right in front of the statue. Then he buried the stone.’
- ‘In the midst of digging a ditch for a new fence line one summer, he pickaxed into a massive tangle of hibernating snakes.’
Origin
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