pitchfork

noun

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 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.”

3. (broadly, informal)Any fork used for farm labor, even a digging fork (but such usage is often considered ignorant by experienced farmers).
4. (rare)A tuning fork.

   “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 […]”

verb

1. (transitive)To toss or carry with a pitchfork.

   “The hay was soon pitchforked onto the wagon.”

2. (figuratively, transitive)To throw suddenly.

   “We have taken an age-old country, and we have suddenly, in 30 years, pitchforked it into the middle of the factory system.”

name

1. A surname.