ˈpike-pole N. Amer.
[pike n.1 2.]
a. A lumberer's tool; a pole having a spike at the end and a hook near it, used for driving and guiding floating logs.
| 1850 N. Kingsley Diary (1914) 139 The weeds are put down with a pike pole and the pressure of the water keeps them to their place. 1878 Scribner's Mag. XV. 147 The running and rafting implements, pike-poles, etc., are made ready. 1891 C. Roberts Adrift Amer. 206, I..was at once put to work pushing logs down a long channel with a pike pole. 1926 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 5 Jan. 1/3 Mattatall sighted it [sc. a bag] and hauled it up with a pike pole. 1945 D. D. Calvin Saga of St. Lawrence 68 Men..sorted out with their long pike-poles (which were like twenty-foot boat-hooks with a sharp point and hook) the longer, thinner pieces. 1964 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 27 Sept. 36/2 A powered boom scooter rides herd on logs in the water where the timber used to be shoved around by a man with caulk boots, a pike pole and the agility of a cougar. 1968 R. M. Patterson Finlay's River 103 Careering downstream, steering their heavy craft by means of long pike-poles, they crashed into one driftpile, sheered out and spun end for end three times. |
b. A long pole having a fire-hook at one end.
| 1949 Chicago Daily News 17 Sept. 1/7 Firemen worked with pike pole and shovel in the wreckage. 1969 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. lii. 34 Pike pole, a rake-like device used to pull plaster loose or to clear an area. ‘Clear it out with the pike pole.’ |