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Pitchfork
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 1 An agricultural tool comprising a fork with sparse, light tines, attached to a long handle, used for pitching hay (especially loose hay) high up onto a stack (as on a wagon or haystack, or into a haymow).
- 2 a long-handled hand tool with sharp widely spaced prongs for lifting and pitching hay wordnet
- 3 A similar fork with slightly more and heavier tines, used for mucking stalls and pitching soiled bedding into a wagon or manure spreader.
"After my second illness, being too old for “piggy-back rides”, I generally sat in 'Resting Nuke' on a seat naturally formed in a low branch of a cedar, watching relatives down in the bay with pitchforks furiously digging out long black slithery "cockworms" from the muddy sands of Sinky Bay."
- 4 Any fork used for farm labor, even a digging fork (but such usage is often considered ignorant by experienced farmers). broadly, informal
- 5 A tuning fork. rare
"I went around with a pitchfork [tuning fork] in my pocket, and I'd hit it whenever I thought of it, and I developed perfect pitch […]"
- 1 To toss or carry with a pitchfork. transitive
"The hay was soon pitchforked onto the wagon."
- 2 lift with a pitchfork wordnet
- 3 To throw suddenly. figuratively, transitive
"We have taken an age-old country, and we have suddenly, in 30 years, pitchforked it into the middle of the factory system."
Etymology
From Middle English pichfork, pycchefork, pychforke, pikeforke, pikkforke, pic-forcke, equivalent to pitch + fork.
From Middle English pichfork, pycchefork, pychforke, pikeforke, pikkforke, pic-forcke, equivalent to pitch + fork.
See also for "pitchfork"
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