Pitchfork

Definitions

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 surname.
3. A similar fork with slightly more and heavier tines, used for mucking stalls and pitching soiled bedding into a wagon or manure spreader.
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

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“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 […]”

CEFR level