A pickax is a heavy tool with a long wooden handle and a metal head that has two ends, used for breaking up hard ground, rocks, or pavement. One end usually comes to a sharp point, while the other might be flat like a chisel or curved like a pick. When you swing a pickax down hard, the pointed end drives deep into packed earth or cracks through stone that a regular shovel couldn't touch.

Miners have used pickaxes for thousands of years to dig through rock and extract ore. Construction workers use them to break up concrete sidewalks or dig through ground that's too hard for shovels. In the California Gold Rush, prospectors carried pickaxes into the mountains, hoping to strike it rich by breaking apart rock to find gold veins inside.

The tool works through a combination of weight, leverage, and concentrated force. When you lift the pickax high and bring it down, all that energy focuses on the small pointed tip, giving it enough power to split stone. It's exhausting work: swinging a pickax requires strength, rhythm, and determination.

You might also see the spelling pickaxe, which means exactly the same thing. Both versions are correct, though pickax is more common in American English.