Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large, long-handled fork with sharp, widely spaced prongs for lifting and pitching hay.
  • transitive verb To lift or toss with or as if with a pitchfork.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A fork for lifting and pitching hay or the like.
  • noun A tuning-fork.
  • noun plural Either Bidens cernua, the nodding bur-marigold, or B. frondosa, the black beggar-ticks: so called from the two prong-like awns of the adhesive achenes. See devil's-pitchforks.
  • To lift or throw with a pitchfork.
  • To put, throw, or thrust suddenly or abruptly into any position.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A fork, or farming utensil, used in pitching hay, sheaves of grain, or the like.
  • transitive verb To pitch or throw with, or as with, a pitchfork.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An agricultural tool comprising a fork attached to a long handle used for pitching hay or bales of hay high up onto a haystack.
  • verb transitive To toss or carry with a pitchfork.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a long-handled hand tool with sharp widely spaced prongs for lifting and pitching hay
  • verb lift with a pitchfork

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration (influenced by pichen, to throw) of Middle English pikforke : pik, pick; see pick or pik, spike; see pike + forke, fork; see fork.]

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