pitch
pitch (pic̸h)
noun
- a black, sticky substance formed in the distillation of coal tar, wood tar, petroleum, etc. and used for waterproofing, roofing, pavements, etc.
- any of certain bitumens, as asphalt, asphaltite, etc.
- a resin found in certain evergreen trees
- any of various synthetic substances having pitchlike properties
Etymology: ME pich < OE pic < L pix (gen. picis) < IE base *pi-, to be fat > fat
transitive verb
pitch (pic̸h)
transitive verb
- to set up; erect pitch a tent
- to throw; cast, fling, or toss
- to toss (coins, quoits, etc.) as at a mark in a contest
- to discard by throwing; throw away
- to set in order for battle: obsolete except in pitched battle
- to fix or set at a particular point, level, degree, etc.
- Informal to try to sell using persuasive talk or advertising
- ☆ Baseball
- to throw (the ball) to the batter
- to assign (a player) to pitch
- to serve as pitcher for (a game, inning, etc.)
- Golf to loft (a ball), esp. in making an approach
- Music to determine or set the key of (a tune, an instrument, or the voice)
Etymology: ME picchen, ? form of picken, to pick
intransitive verb
- to encamp
- to take up one's position; settle
- to hurl or toss anything, as hay, a baseball, etc.
- to fall or plunge headlong
- to incline downward; dip
- to plunge or toss with the bow and stern rising and falling abruptly: said of a ship
- to move in a like manner in the air: said of an aircraft
- to plunge forward; lurch, as when off balance
- to act as pitcher in a ballgame
- to loft a golf ball, as in making an approach
noun
- act or manner of pitching
- a throw; fling; toss; specif., a throw by a pitcher to a batter
- the rising and falling of the bow and stern of a ship in a rough sea
- the movement up or down of the nose and tail of an airplane
- anything pitched
- the amount pitched
- a point or degree emotion was at a high pitch
- the degree of slope or inclination
- ☆ a card game of the all-fours family in which the suit of the first card led becomes trump
- ☆ Informal a line of talk, such as a salesman uses to persuade customers
- Brit.
- a playing field a cricket pitch
- a place, often assigned, for pitching a tent or parking a trailer, etc.
- a place where a street vendor, street performer, racecourse bookmaker, etc. sets up his stand
- Aeron.
- the adjustable blade angle of the propeller or rotor blade
- the distance advanced by a propeller in one revolution
- Archit. the slope of the sides of a roof, expressed by the ratio of its height to its span
- Geol., Mining the dip of a stratum or vein
- Golf a short, lofted shot, usually to the green
- Machinery
- the distance between corresponding points on two adjacent gear teeth
- the distance between corresponding points on two adjacent threads of a screw, measured along the axis
- Music, Acoustics that element of a tone or sound determined by the frequency of vibration of the sound waves reaching the ear: the greater the frequency, the higher the pitch
- Music a tone used as a standard of pitch for tuning instruments
in there pitching
☆make a pitch for
☆pitch in
Informal- to set to work energetically
- to make a contribution
pitch into
Informal- to attack physically or verbally
- to set to work on energetically
Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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