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Pickaxe

noun
1.
A heavy iron tool with a wooden handle and a curved head that is pointed on both ends.  Synonyms: pick, pickax.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Pickaxe" Quotes from Famous Books



... just water enough to keep us alive. The party who had tried to sink a well had invariably been stopped by hard limestone rock in every place they had tried, and all their attempts to penetrate it by means of a cold chisel and pickaxe had proved abortive. The party which had been out with me searching for water had not seen the slightest sign which indicated its presence on the island: we had taken a spade with us, but wherever we dug had come down upon the solid rock. Under these circumstances I reduced the allowance ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... our sister's house; so we agreed to return to it, and to carry there the body of the poor young woman, that we might bury it with those of our own family. The hut was one of the very few which had escaped the flames, and we found some spades and a pickaxe within. Not knowing how soon we might be interrupted, we at once set to work and dug two graves under a maple-tree at the further end of the garden. One was large enough to hold our brother-in-law and sister, and their boy; and in the other we placed the ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... looked round about and thought of old Sam's style of fishing. "Well, one can't catch these with a shovel and a pickaxe. No one could ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... couldn't see any face, for its head was covered with a hood, but he saw that it held suthin' like a big cross clasped agin its breast. This made him think it was one them priests, until he looks agin and sees that it wasn't no cross it was carryin,' but a PICKAXE! He makes a jump towards it, but it vanished! He traipsed over the hull garden,—went though ev'ry bush,—but it was clean gone. Then the hull thing flashed upon him with a cold shiver. The old man bein' found dead in the well! the goin' ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... this pickaxe, and see how you like it. Jump into the hole without a word, or I'll help you with my heavy hand!" ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... against it this time than they had been before. John Barker had an unshaved beard, a scowling eye, and a red face; his dress consisted of a blue woollen shirt, coarse blue trousers grimed in mud, and a low-crowned black hat; on his shoulder he carried a spade and pickaxe. As he walked along he was joined by others of an equally unprepossessing appearance, and found many more already assembled at the scene of ...
— Adventures of a Sixpence in Guernsey by A Native • Anonymous

... the trampled working man, nor goes trumpeting abroad the dignity of labour. Then Ponny shifts his ground, and complains that many clever fellows who are workers with the pen are now hardly earning more than many workers with the pickaxe. 'Well, it's their own fault,' says Pater; 'they might easily earn more if they were not so idle.' Penny replies they don't want luxuries, being men of simple tastes, and anything but Sybarites. 'So am I,' cries Leech; ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... gunpowder; the force of which detaches pieces from the rock, which are hewn roughly into forms on the spot by a small pickaxe. Granite is also quarried by cutting a deep line some yards long, and placing strong iron wedges at equal distances along this line; these wedges are struck in succession with heavy hammers, till the mass splits ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... should intersect about half-way between the two termini. Instead of this, after travelling for a couple of miles along a good hardened track, we arrived at a series of trenches which effectually stopped all progress. Each van had a pickaxe and shovel, therefore we all set to work in rapid relief of each other to level the obstructions, and by this hard exercise the thermometer appeared to rise quickly from the low temperature of the morning. The oxen were good, and by dint ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... me think for a moment. Those Flying-Fish people started by searching the beach. The Professor, possessing superior knowledge to the others, searched the face of the cliff; and finally, when the precise locality of the mine had been discovered, they went to work with pickaxe and shovel and dug their way down to the level of the 'pocket'. I think our best plan would be to search for that hole, which must still be conspicuous enough to admit of identification. Let us return, by way of the donga, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... the minister; and all the learning he had was obtained from assiduous study of a grocer's window. But for one brief day he had things his own way in the town, or, speaking strictly, on the top of it. With a spade, a broom, and a pickaxe, which sat lightly on his broad shoulders (he was not even back-bent, and that showed him no respectable weaver), Henders delved his way to the nearest house, which formed one of a row, and addressed the inmates down the chimney. They had already been clearing it at the other end, ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... the heart of the Saarbruck Mountains as an engineer of mines, where, according to custom, he had to commence with the lowest grade of labour, and for months drag a heavy wheel-barrow, and wield the pickaxe. Yet here, in reality, dawned his mission as the apostle of popular music: he relieved the tedium of those interminable nights of toil—for days there were none—by composing and teaching choruses, thus leading ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... stuffed specimen on a shelf, held his neck erect, gave no sign of suffering from any wound, and though he was motionless, his small black eyes seemed to be ever keenly watchful. His formidable bill, very sharp, three or three and a half inches long, and shaped like a pickaxe, was held perfectly level. But the wonder was that he did not struggle or make the slightest movement. We had a tortoise-shell cat, an old Tom of great experience, who was so fond of lying under the stove in frosty weather that it was difficult even to poke him out with a broom; but when he saw ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... umber and mottled white breast, with coal-black collar and neck and head of cinnamon. His golden tail droops far below his perch, and, running downward along the tree-trunk, it flashes in the air like a sceptre over the wood-lice he devours with his pickaxe bill. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard!" was an instigation to murder in the flicker, who loves young ants as much as wild-cherries or Indian corn, and is capable of taking any such satire seriously upon things to ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... of going to Hector, whom he had told not to expect him, he got a pickaxe and spade, and proceeded to dig in the trodden heap. At the first blow of the pickaxe he came upon large stones—the job of clearing out which was by no means an easy one—so far from it, indeed, that, after working for half an hour, and only getting out two large and half a dozen smaller ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... HIS share of a week's work with two partners. It was not much; "the country was getting played out with fresh arrivals and greenhorns." All this falling carelessly from the unshaven lips of a dusty, roughly dressed man, with a long-handled shovel and pickaxe strapped on his back, and a frying-pan depending from his saddle. But no panoplied or armed knight ever seemed so heroic or independent a figure to Clarence. What could be finer than the noble scorn conveyed in his critical survey of the train, with its comfortable covered wagons and appliances ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... multitude of victims for the sake of their religion and pecuniary gain. The Thug bands would assemble at fixed places of rendezvous, and before commencing their expeditions much strange ceremony had to be gone through. A sacred pickaxe was the emblem of their faith: its fashioning was wrought with quaint rites and its custody was a matter of great moment. Its point was supposed to indicate the line of route propitious to the disciples of the goddess, and it was credited with other ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... Concurrence. For instance, a man might examine a "spade" in all its parts and might even make one after a model, and not even know what "dig" means. The mention of "dig" is as likely to make us think of pickaxe as of spade. "Spade" does not mean "dig," nor does "dig" mean spade. "Dig" merely means the action of the "spade," or the use to which it is put. Hence this pair of words does not furnish an example of Inclusion. But as "dig" is frequently appropriated ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)

... was an inn, a frightful hovel, whose sign was a wreath of dried herbs hung upon a pickaxe. Nothing but a roof window and three-legged tables. A low ale-house, rickety tables. Negroes and mulattoes were drinking there, intoxicating and besotting themselves, and fraternising. One has to have seen these things to depict ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... woman, or child remained an idle spectator. On this occasion, the aged seemed to have recovered the vigour of youth, and women and children to have acquired the strength of manhood. In a word, men of all trades and professions were confounded, and cheerfully handled the pickaxe and shovel: delicate females, sprucely dressed, were seen here and there wheeling along barrows filled with earth; while long strings of stout fellows dragged heavy loads in carts and waggons. As the electric matter runs along the several links of an extensive ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... they skurried about, Putting fish worms, and beetles, and such like to rout. At length one, the most energetic of all, Found something quite large and round like a ball, So calling the family, with pickaxe and spades They soon in the wonder an opening made. And what do you think they found it to be? A turnip so large it might have been three. So they hollowed it out as fast as they could, Not pausing a moment ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller

... it or not, as you please, but along this new road score upon score of young women and mere girls toiled and slaved with pickaxe and shovel. And some fell and were lifted up again, with threats and imprecations, and toiled on. There were some who came from Belgium, whose hands had been cut off, and these were harnessed and drew stones. ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... was once the site of a Maori kainga, or village. Hence, the scrub that covered it was not of large growth, while the soil is exceptionally loose and rich, consisting of black mould largely intermixed with shells. This space we cleared and fenced in. Then we went to work with spade and pickaxe and mattock. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... collector of manuscripts, Arni Magnusson. The great eruption of Hecla in 1390 overwhelmed two famous homesteads in the immediate neighbourhood. From the local history of these homesteads and their inmates, Vigfusson thinks it not unlikely that some records may still be there "awaiting the spade and pickaxe of a new ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... no doubt could exist as to the noises at that moment, as the yellings, scamperings and scramblings were loud enough in all conscience. The sacristan came out from the body of the church and suggested another exorcism to the reverend father, who answered that he preferred the pickaxe, and, turning to beckon to his workmen, found they had fled. Nowise daunted, the reverend gentleman took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and went to work with a will, making the vault re-echo with his blows. This operation, while it had the effect ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... intrepidity of the men could avail without them; and as the scouts are called the eyes, so might the engineers, both regular and volunteer, be termed the hands and feet, of an advancing force. The host sweeps on, and the workers are left with pickaxe and shovel, rifles close at hand, to work at their laborious task loyally and patiently, while deeds of courage and daring are being done and applauded not many miles away from them. This particular Rhenoster bridge ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... the Pachydermata and the Cetaceae. Each ramus of the under jaw, which in the larger specimens are fully four feet in length, bore at the symphysis a great bent tusk turned downwards, which appears to have been employed as a pickaxe in uprooting the aquatic plants and liliaceous roots on which the creature seems to have lived. The head, which measured about three feet across,—a breadth, sufficient, surely, to satisfy the demands of the most exacting phrenologist,—was provided with muscles of enormous strength, arranged ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... towards the Tongres gate, while at the same time the more ostensible operations were in the opposite direction. The besieged had their miners also, for the peasants in the city had been used to work with mattock and pickaxe. The women, too, enrolled themselves into companies, chose their officers—or "mine-mistresses," as they were called—and did good service daily in the caverns of the earth. Thus a whole army of gnomes were noiselessly at work to destroy and defend the beleaguered city. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... get a few out one at a time on moonlight nights, and fill up the blooming holes again, we shouldn't want any blasted machinery for our gold mine, except a pickaxe and a shovel." ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... hour was arrived at which the friar had promised that she should awake; and he, having learned that his letters which he had sent to Mantua, by some unlucky detention of the messenger, had never reached Romeo, came himself, provided with the pickaxe and lantern, to deliver the lady from her confinement; but he was surprised to find a light already burning in the Capulets' monument, and to see swords and blood near it, and Romeo and Paris lying breathless by ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... this morning over her silly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this morning. That gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves. Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices. Reserve better. Don't want ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... inner slip A' (Blake's stopper). Stern, stream and kedge anchors are usually stowed with special davits. A portable anchor suitable for small yachts is the invention of Mr Louis Moore; the shank passes through the crown of the anchor like the handle of a pickaxe and the stock over the head of the shank. At the end of the stock are loose pawls. There are no keys or bolts, and the only fastening is for the cable. The anchor takes to pieces readily and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... depth of the ravine came a man with a pickaxe shaped like a stork's neck with the bill on it. He was an Egyptian slave, old and entirely naked. He looked for a while with the utmost amazement at the work of the soldiers; then, springing between them on ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... Defoe and Joseph Addison, with Oliver Goldsmith and Dick Swiveller and Colonel Newcome to clink ghostly glasses amid the punch fumes and tobacco smoke. In short I knew London when it was still Old London—the knowledge of Temple Bar and Cheapside—before the vandal horde of progress and the pickaxe of the builder had got in ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... existed, and it was worse than useless to go further. I told him to go on if he had to get to New Zealand—it was my money, and he need not regard me nor my pocket. When he had gone about 22 feet, his pickaxe tapped the spring and the water came up like a fountain, and at such a rate he feared he should be drowned before he could get pulled up—his mates being away! The water rose rapidly to within 12 or 15 inches of the surface. We put in pumps and kept the water down whilst he went a little deeper, ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett

... in mind that I wanted many things notwithstanding all that I had amassed together; and of these, ink was one; as also a spade, pickaxe, and shovel, to dig or remove the earth; needles, pins, and thread; as for linen, I soon learned to want ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... was toiling, seeking, toiling, by hot sun and cold moon, with pickaxe and with spade; and as he toiled there came a bright Spirit, and looked him in the face, ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards

... hands stretched across us; but the cabman threaded his way between, till he came to the brink of a precipice. The horse seemed quite ready, like a Roman, to leap down it, seeing nothing less desirable than his present mode of life, till a man with a pickaxe ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... to find a treasure; and, as they had neither spade nor pickaxe with them to dig for gold, he thought the best way would be for them to find a bag of money. Amy said, if they found a bag of money, she should like to take Dolly some. This being generously agreed to by Alan and Owen, they proceeded ...
— The Nursery, July 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 1 • Various

... village one evening; she had been in violent convulsions successively—it was all but over. I laid her down on her litter within a hut; covered her with a Scotch plaid; and I fell upon my mat insensible, worn out with sorrow and fatigue. My men put a new handle to the pickaxe that evening, and sought for a dry spot to dig ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... panorama; and on this grey and silver morning the ruined towers of the cathedral stood about me somewhat vaguely like grey clouds. But down in a hollow where the local antiquaries are making a fruitful excavation, a magnificent old ruffian with a pickaxe (whom I believe to have been St. Joseph of Arimathea) showed me a fragment of the old vaulted roof which he had found in the earth; and on the whitish grey stone there was just a faint brush of gold. There seemed ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... extensive now than formerly, new discoveries not equaling the exhausted placers. They are principally on the Asiatic slope, in the vicinity of Kamenskoi. The Emperor Alexander First visited the mines of the Ural in 1824, and personally wielded the shovel and pickaxe nearly two hours. A nugget weighing twenty-four pounds and some ounces was afterward found about two feet ibelow the point where His Majesty 'knocked off' work. A monument now marks the spot, and contains the tools handled ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... the old foundations rock; One scorns at him of old who gazed unshod; One striking with a pickaxe thinks the shock Shall ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... "Yes; pickaxe, mattocks, and a crowbar; a lantern, and so forth," said the doctor. "You see I am at home in this; the fact is, I have had more than one affair of this kind on my hands before now, and whilst a student I have had more than one adventure of a ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... his extradition had failed, gave an example of the same kind of courage. Another detective, in a case where the body of a murdered man had been hidden, did not hesitate to arrest the murderer on the flimsy charge of "being in unlawful possession of a pickaxe" to prevent flight while he continued his search. In each case these men deliberately adopted risks to attain their ends which ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... in mind that I wanted many things, notwithstanding all that I had amassed together; and of these, this of ink was one, as also spade, pickaxe, and shovel, to dig or remove the earth; needles, pins, and thread. As for linen, I soon learnt to want that without ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... Miss,' cried Miss Nipper, 'for I know that you object, but I may wish, Miss, that the family was set to work to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front and had the pickaxe.' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... Granada, with many horse and foot, and had also in Valencia, in the Caracas, two hundred horse ready to march; and I could not have spared above forty, and had not any store at all of powder, lead, or match to have left with them, nor any other provision, either spade, pickaxe, or aught ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh

... all perceptible to you, above our heads, and that opening shielded now by a simple curtain, but which in an instant, without my moving from this place, I can so hermetically seal that no man, save he be armed with crowbar and pickaxe, could enter here, even if man could know of our imprisonment, in a house soon to be closed from top to bottom ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... struck, and the entire party proceeded in the direction of the gully, or cleft, upon their arrival at which preparations were at once made for a possible sojourn of a few days; and while those preparations were being made, Earle and Dick, carrying a pickaxe and shovel, as well as their rifles, started to climb the cleft, bent upon examining the spot where the emeralds had been found, and, if possible, settling the question as to whether or not a mine ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... a mist; but d'yo think ye'll help them wi' skirling that gate like an auld skart before a flaw o' weather?Steenie, lad, bring up the mastOd, I'se hae them up as we used to bouse up the kegs o' gin and brandy lang syneGet up the pickaxe, make a step for the mastmake the chair fast with the rattlinhaul ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... cried Sue, in great spirits. "Well, then, I shall be queen of spades. Get 'em, and come with me. Bring a pickaxe, too." She led the way to a point not far from the dwelling, and resumed: "A hole here, father, a hole there, Hiram, big enough for a small hemlock, and holes all along the northeast side of the house. Then lots more holes, all over the lawn, for oaks, maples, dogwood, and all sorts ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... course, was called into service for this—no one could clear a road through a rough tract of land better than he. He was busy preparing for the spring examinations, and very anxious to be victor; but books were laid aside without a murmur, and he shouldered his pickaxe and shovel, and in company with two or three other big boys set cheerfully and heartily to work. It seemed strange that his last work on earth should be preparing this road to the cemetery along which his own body would be carried before those of the Bishop ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... behind him, to be ready for carrying out in the morning. He heard a good deal of goblin-tapping, but it all sounded far away in the hill, and he paid it little heed. Towards midnight he began to feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got out a lump of bread which in the morning he had laid in a damp hole in the rock, sat down on a heap of ore, and ate his supper. Then he leaned back for five minutes' rest before beginning his work again, and laid his head against the rock. He had not kept the position for one minute before ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald

... of which there was very little, Lady Ker went to bed. But Randal and Jean slipped out into the moonlight. They took a sack with them, and Randal carried a pickaxe and a spade. They walked quickly to the three great stones, and waited for a while to hear if all was quiet. Then Jean threw a white cloak round her, and stole about the edges of the camp and the wood. She knew that if any wandering man came by, he would not stay long where such a figure ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang

... greater space must also be allowed than is usual for an ordinary crop. A good open position is imperative, and where the soil is sufficiently deep, trenching is desirable. Shallow soil ought to be thoroughly dug down to the last inch, and it will be an advantage to break up the subsoil by pickaxe and fork. Cover the subsoil with a thick layer of rotten manure before restoring the top soil. For light land farmyard manure is excellent, but stable manure is preferable for stiff cold soil. The usual time for trenching is October or November, leaving the surface rough for disintegration ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... to Ingmar, and sat down on the ground quite close to him. It seemed to be the only place where he could be at ease, for there he remained quietly, resting his shaky old hands on the crook of his cane. And as soon as old Lisa and Cowhouse Martha saw where Pickaxe Bengt had taken refuge, they, too, came tottering up, and sat down at Ingmar's feet. They did not speak to him, but somehow they must have had a vague idea that he would be able to protect them—he who ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... below had convinced themselves that the door was firmly fastened, and, desperate from the conviction that they were identified, and relying on the loneliness of the place, they were attacking the barrier with a pickaxe. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... the floor of the old mill to see how Joe was, the head of the sexton appeared emerging from it. He looked full of weighty solemn business. Bidding me good-morning, he turned to the corner where his tools lay, and proceeded to shoulder spade and pickaxe. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... had vanished from sight. Somewhere in a grave close at hand a digger, whom they could not see, was wielding his pickaxe ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... Narran penetrated into the hollows of the stony ridge, presenting there little hollows full of rich verdure and pools of water, a sight so unwonted amongst rocks characteristic of D'Urban's arid group. In one little hollow, to the westward of our camp, it seemed possible for two men with a pickaxe and shovel to have continued it through, and so to have opened a new channel for the passage of the waters of the Narran swamp, into the dry country between it and the Barwan. Thermometer at sunrise, 55 deg.; at noon, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... also nayles, wherewithall to ioyne the plancks together. Whereupon hauing by chance a Smyth amongst them, (and yet vnfurnished of his necessary tooles to worke and make nayles withall) they were faine of a gunne chamber to make an Anuile to worke vpon, and to vse a pickaxe in stead of a sledge to beate withall, and also to occupy two small bellowes in steade of one payre of greater Smiths bellowes. And for lacke of small Yron for the easier making of the nayles, they were forced to breake their tongs, grydiron, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... bar. But a few shovelfuls more were needed. The work jarred the shaft, and the child slipped twenty—-five feet deeper. At seven o'clock we were down to where he was again, though we could no longer bear him. We dug a little below, bored a bole, and the father slipped through a pickaxe handle, and fainted away as he felt the little one slide down again but rest on the handle. We tore off the boards, took the baby out, and drew him and his father to the surface. There were two doctors waiting for them, and ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth

... Highlandmen who have lived on the mountains are going to dig coal? Do you imagine that these men, who, until a generation or two ago, never handled anything but a claymore, and who even now scorn to do aught but stalk deer or spear salmon, will take a shovel and a pickaxe and labor as coal-miners? There is not a Crawford among them who would do it. I would ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... yellow flowers, others shedding the white silk from their pods. Gutters full of muddy water rayed the black ground with lines that shone here and there in the light. These were fed by broader canals connected with the Nile. Small dikes of earth, easily opened with a blow of a pickaxe, dammed up the waters until watering-time. The rough wheels of the sakiehs, turned by buffaloes, oxen, camels, or asses, raised the water to higher levels. Sometimes, even, two robust fellahs, perfectly naked, tawny and shining like Florentine bronzes, standing on the ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... foot-chains. No song, no whistling. Now and then they shyly looked at the visitor and his companion. The water dripped from the stones; the tatters of the convicts were thoroughly wet. One of them, a tall man, of suffering mien, laboured hard with gasping breath, but the strokes of his pickaxe were not heavy and firm enough ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various



Words linked to "Pickaxe" :   pickax, edge tool, mattock



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