Monday word: pikel

[ersatz-read.livejournal.com]

pikel /ˈpɪkl/ noun
A pitchfork or hay-fork.

Not a common word here in the states, as far as I'm aware.
It's a regional English word, originating in the early 1600s - anyone know if it's still in use regionally?

Listed in volume 4 of Joseph Wright's 1903 book
The English Dialect Dictionary: Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect Words Still in Use, Or Known to Have Been in Use During the Last Two Hundred Years; Founded on the Publications of the English Dialect Society and on a Large Amount of Material Never Before Printed

which also lists the phrase "to rain pikels", meaning to rain heavily.
The phrase can also be found in this list of 32 Long-Forgotten Weather Words.

Comments

[sileni.livejournal.com]

I've genuinely never heard either the word or the phrase before, anywhere across the UK.

I feel like this means I have to go on a research road trip and try to find it! Any information on the region it came from?

[ersatz-read.livejournal.com]

Lancashire, I think.