English Explanatory Dictionary

pitch

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A sticky, gummy substance secreted by trees; sap.
  2. A dark, extremely viscous material still remaining after distilling crude oil or natural tar.
  3. Pitchstone.
verb
  1. To cover or smear with pitch.
  2. To darken; to blacken; to obscure.
adj
  1. Very dark black; pitch-black.
  2. Intense, deep, dark.
noun
  1. A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand.
  2. The act of pitching a baseball.
  3. The field on which cricket, soccer, rugby, gridiron or field hockey is played. (In cricket, the pitch is in the centre of the field; see cricket pitch.) (Not often used in the US or Canada, where "field" is the preferred word.)
  4. A short, high, lofty shot that lands with backspin.
  5. The field of battle.
  6. An effort to sell or promote something.
  7. The distance between evenly spaced objects, e.g. the teeth of a saw or gear, the turns of a screw thread, the centres of holes, or letters in a monospace font.
  8. The angle at which an object sits.
  9. The rotation angle about the transverse axis.
  10. The degree to which a vehicle, especially a ship or aircraft, rotates on such an axis, tilting its bow or nose up or down.
  11. A measure of the angle of attack of a propeller.
  12. An area in a market (or similar) allocated to a particular trader.
verb
  1. To throw.
  2. To throw (the ball) toward a batter at home plate.
  3. To play baseball in the position of pitcher.
  4. To throw away; discard.
  5. To promote, advertise, or attempt to sell.
  6. To deliver in a certain tone or style, or with a certain audience in mind.
  7. To assemble or erect (a tent). Also used figuratively.
  8. To fix or place a tent or temporary habitation; to encamp.
  9. To move so that the front of an aircraft or boat goes alternately up and down.
  10. To set at an angle, especially a downwards one; to cause to tilt.
  11. To play a short, high, lofty shot that lands with backspin.
  12. To bounce on the playing surface.
noun
  1. The perceived frequency of a sound, note or electromagnetic wave.
  2. The standard to which a group of musical instruments are tuned or in which a piece is performed, usually by reference to the frequency to which the musical note A above middle C is tuned.
  3. In an a cappella group, the singer responsible for singing a note for the other members to tune themselves by.
verb
  1. To produce a note of a given pitch.
  2. To fix or set the tone of.

Pronunciation

/pɪt͡ʃ/ en-us-pitch.ogg en-au-pitch.ogg

Word forms

pitch pitches pitching pitched pitcher pitchest pight

Etymology

From Middle English picche, piche, pich, from Old English piċ, from Proto-West Germanic *pik, from Latin pix. Cognate with Ancient Greek πίσσα (píssa, “pitch, tar”), Latin pīnus (“pine”). More at pine. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Pik (“pitch, tar”), Dutch pek (“pitch, tar”), German Low German Pick (“pitch, tar”), German Pech (“pitch, tar”), Catalan pega (“pitch”), Spanish pegar (“to stick, glue”), Franco-Provençal pouatche (“sap from a pine”) and French poix (“sap”). The adjective is probably back-formed from pitch-black, reinterpreting "pitch" as meaning "intense(ly)".

Synonyms

tar coal tar asphalt bitumen fling hurl bung cast chuck chunk cook dash dump feck jerk heave hield hoy huck hurtle launch lob peck peg pick pitch precipitate project quoit shy slight skew sling thrill throw toss traject warp whang whip whop wing cast aside throw away junk 86 bin can cast off cast away chuck away chuck out discard dispose of ditch get rid of jettison scrap shift throw aside

Related words

piceous

Derived words

Burgundy pitch Canada pitch dark as pitch earth pitch Greek pitch Jews' pitch pitch apple pitch-black pitch black pitchblende pitchcapping pitch coal pitch dark pitch-dark pitch darkness pitchlike pitch mining pitch moth pitch peat pitch pine pitch-tar the devil to pay and no pitch hot or ready pitchless auction pitch brushback pitch ceremonial first pitch elevator pitch fast-pitch fastpitch fever pitch hit-by-pitch home pitch horizontal pitch jam pitch monopitch multipitch payoff pitch pitch accent pitchback pitch bible pitchbook pitch count pitch deck pitch-faced pitchfest pitch game pitch invader pitch invasion pitchman pitch mark pitchmeter pitchometer pitchout pitchperson pitchpipe pitchpole pitchside pitchwoman queer someone's pitch quick pitch

Translations

Bulgarian: танга́ж Bulgarian: килово клатене Finnish: nyökkääminen French: tangage Portuguese: arfagem Russian: танга́ж Russian: дифферент Swedish: propellerstigning Swedish: stigning Italian: beccheggio Polish: kiwanie Spanish: cabeceo Spanish: arfada Spanish: cabezada
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