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# pickaxe

noun (a pickaxe, pickaxes); also pickax (USA)

«pickaxe» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

A pickaxe is a heavy tool with a long wooden handle and a curved metal head with a point on one or both ends, used for breaking hard ground, rock or ice. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/#m1)

### In the lessons

In history lessons miners, gold rush diggers and road builders use pickaxes; in stories and video games a pickaxe is a digging tool. In safety, heavy tools are for adults. Phrases: swing a pickaxe, a miner's pickaxe.

### Examples

- The miner swung his pickaxe at the rock. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/#x1)
- Gold rush diggers carried pickaxes and shovels. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/#x2)
- Workers broke up the road with a pickaxe. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/#x3)
- In the game you need a pickaxe to dig for diamonds. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/#x4)
- A pickaxe is too heavy for small children to use. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/#x5)
- The climbers used an ice axe, a kind of small pickaxe. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/#x6)
- Jack took a horn, a shovel, a pickaxe, his armor, and a dark lantern, and one winter’s evening he went to the mount. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/#x7)

### Note

Countable: plural «pickaxes». US spelling is often «pickax». Often shortened to «pick». Not the same as an axe, which has a flat blade for chopping wood.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «pickaxe» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pickaxe/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«pickaxe» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/pickaxe.html) on Mova free.