U+26CF · emoji since 2014
The pickaxe is a tool for breaking rock and digging deep. It means mining, hard labor, and chipping away at a big job.
It headlines mining games and gritty work, and tags grinding away, one swing at a time.
In texting, ⛏️ does not carry a widely used hidden or slang meaning, so you can usually take it at face value. People send it just as it looks, to add a little visual touch or set the mood of a message. Only a handful of emoji have a separate texting code, and ⛏️ is not really one of them.
Its official Unicode name is the Pick emoji. In everyday chat most people just call it the pick emoji or describe what it shows. Copy and paste it from the button at the top of this page.
The ⛏️ leads off a short phrase, and the rest of the words are written in cipher, every letter disguised as another emoji. Tap decipher to reveal the whole line.
Or make your own cipher in the translator.