Pickaxe#As a weapon

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.{{cite book|last1=Soanes|first1=Catherine|last2=Stevenson|first2=Angus|title=Oxford Dictionary of English|date=2006|publisher=Oxford Univ. Press|location=Oxford, New York|isbn=978-0-19-861057-1|page=1330|edition=2. ed. (rev.) / ed. by Catherine Soanes ...}}

The term pickaxe is a folk etymology alteration of Middle English {{lang|enm|picas}} via Anglo-Norman {{lang|xno|piceis}}, Old French {{lang|fro|pocois}}, and directly from Medieval Latin {{lang|la|picosa}} {{gloss|pick}}, related to Latin {{lang|la|picus}} {{gloss|woodpecker}}.{{MerriamWebsterDictionary|Pickax|access-date=2017-03-03}}{{OEtymD|pickaxe}} 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.

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,{{cite web|url=http://www.ingenious.org.uk/See/Tradeandindustry/Handandmachinetools/?target=SeeMedium&ObjectID=%7BB316DA4B-0B90-D31E-C28F-94EC504B8D04%7D&viewby=images|title=Deer-antler pick, used in flint mining from Grimes Graves|publisher=ingenious.org.uk|access-date=6 July 2012}} 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.

File:Aa flyingwedge plain.jpg

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.{{cn|date=June 2019}}

Pickaxes are commonly carried by Pioneer Sergeants in the British Army.{{cite web |last1=Tooth |first1=John-Paul |title=Meet The Pioneer Sergeant: One Of The Few Army Ranks Allowed A Beard On Parade |url=https://www.forces.net/news/meet-pioneer-sergeant-one-few-army-ranks-allowed-beard-parade |website=forces.net |access-date=22 July 2019 |page=1 |format=Web page |date=3 October 2018}}

A normal pickaxe handle is made of ash or hickory wood and is about {{convert|3|ft|cm|abbr=on}} and weighs about {{convert|2.5|lb|kg|abbr=on}}. British Army pickaxe handles must, by regulation, be exactly {{convert|3|ft|cm|abbr=on}} long, for use in measuring in the field.{{cn|date=June 2019}} New variant designs are:

• With a plastic casing on the thick end.
• Made of carbon fibre{{cn|date=October 2023}}

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

• Mattock
• Ice axe
• Entrenching tool

{{Commons category|Pickaxes}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Garden tools}}

{{Mining equipment}}

Category:Hand tools

Category:Gardening tools