PITCH

pitch

(noun) the action or manner of throwing something; “his pitch fell short and his hat landed on the floor”

pitch, delivery

(noun) (baseball) the act of throwing a baseball by a pitcher to a batter

lurch, pitch, pitching

(noun) abrupt up-and-down motion (as caused by a ship or other conveyance); “the pitching and tossing was quite exciting”

pitch, auction pitch

(noun) an all-fours game in which the first card led is a trump

pitch, pitch shot

(noun) a high approach shot in golf

pitch

(noun) the property of sound that varies with variation in the frequency of vibration

pitch, rake, slant

(noun) degree of deviation from a horizontal plane; “the roof had a steep pitch”

pitch, soccer field

(noun) a sports field with predetermined dimensions for playing soccer

pitch

(noun) a vendor’s position (especially on the sidewalk); “he was employed to see that his paper’s news pitches were not trespassed upon by rival vendors”

pitch, tar

(noun) any of various dark heavy viscid substances obtained as a residue

gear, pitch

(verb) set the level or character of; “She pitched her speech to the teenagers in the audience”

pitch

(verb) set to a certain pitch; “He pitched his voice very low”

pitch

(verb) lead (a card) and establish the trump suit

pitch

(verb) hit (a golf ball) in a high arc with a backspin

deliver, pitch

(verb) throw or hurl from the mound to the batter, as in baseball; “The pitcher delivered the ball”

flip, toss, sky, pitch

(verb) throw or toss with a light motion; “flip me the beachball”; “toss me newspaper”

pitch, set up

(verb) erect and fasten; “pitch a tent”

lurch, pitch, shift

(verb) move abruptly; “The ship suddenly lurched to the left”

cant, cant over, tilt, slant, pitch

(verb) heel over; “The tower is tilting”; “The ceiling is slanting”

pitch

(verb) fall or plunge forward; “She pitched over the railing of the balcony”

slope, incline, pitch

(verb) be at an angle; “The terrain sloped down”

peddle, monger, huckster, hawk, vend, pitch

(verb) sell or offer for sale from place to place

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology 1

Noun

pitch (countable and uncountable, plural pitches)

A sticky, gummy substance secreted by trees; sap.

A dark, extremely viscous material remaining in still after distilling crude oil and tar.

(geology) Pitchstone.

Verb

pitch (third-person singular simple present pitches, present participle pitching, simple past and past participle pitched)

To cover or smear with pitch.

To darken; to blacken; to obscure.

Etymology 2

Noun

pitch (plural pitches)

A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand.

(baseball) The act of pitching a baseball.

(sports, Australia, NZ) The field on which cricket, soccer, rugby or field hockey is played. (In cricket, the pitch is in the centre of the field; see cricket pitch.) Not used in America, where "field" is the preferred word.

An effort to sell or promote something.

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.

The angle at which an object sits.

A level or degree, or (by extension), a peak or highest degree.

The rotation angle about the transverse axis.

(nautical, aviation) The degree to which a vehicle, especially a ship or aircraft, rotates on such an axis, tilting its bow or nose up or down. Compare with roll, yaw, and heave.

(aviation) A measure of the angle of attack of a propeller.

The place where a busker performs.

An area in a market (or similar) allocated to a particular trader.

An area on a campsite intended for occupation by a single tent, caravan or similar.

A point or peak; the extreme point of elevation or depression.

Prominence; importance.

(climbing) A section of a climb or rock face; specifically, the climbing distance between belays or stances.

(caving) A vertical cave passage, only negotiable by using rope or ladders.

(now British, regional) A person's or animal's height.

(cricket) That point of the ground on which the ball pitches or lights when bowled.

A descent; a fall; a thrusting down.

The point where a declivity begins; hence, the declivity itself; a descending slope; the degree or rate of descent or slope; slant.

(mining) The limit of ground set to a miner who receives a share of the ore taken out.

Hyponyms

• football pitch

Verb

pitch (third-person singular simple present pitches, present participle pitching, simple past and past participle pitched)

(transitive) To throw.

(transitive or intransitive, baseball) To throw (the ball) toward a batter at home plate.

(intransitive, baseball) To play baseball in the position of pitcher.

(transitive) To throw away; discard.

(transitive) To promote, advertise, or attempt to sell.

(transitive) To deliver in a certain tone or style, or with a certain audience in mind.

(transitive) To assemble or erect (a tent).

(intransitive) To fix or place a tent or temporary habitation; to encamp.

(ambitransitive, aviation or nautical) To move so that the front of an aircraft or boat goes alternatively up and down.

(transitive, golf) To play a short, high, lofty shot that lands with backspin.

(intransitive, cricket) To bounce on the playing surface.

(intransitive, Bristol, of snow) To settle and build up, without melting.

(intransitive, archaic) To alight; to settle; to come to rest from flight.

(with on or upon) To fix one's choice.

(intransitive) To plunge or fall; especially, to fall forward; to decline or slope.

(transitive, of an embankment, roadway) To set, face, or pave with rubble or undressed stones.

(transitive, of a price, value) To set or fix.

(transitive, card games, slang, of a card) To discard for some gain.

Etymology 3

Unknown. Perhaps related to the above sense of level or degree, or influenced by it.

Noun

pitch (plural pitches)

(music, phonetics) The perceived frequency of a sound or note.

(music) In an a cappella group, the singer responsible for singing a note for the other members to tune themselves by.

Verb

pitch (third-person singular simple present pitches, present participle pitching, simple past and past participle pitched)

(intransitive) To produce a note of a given pitch.

(transitive) To fix or set the tone of.

Source: Wiktionary

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Pitch, n. Etym: [OE. pich, AS. pic, L. pix; akin to Gr.

1. A thick, black, lustrous, and sticky substance obtained by boiling down tar. It is used in calking the seams of ships; also in coating rope, canvas, wood, ironwork, etc., to preserve them. He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith. Ecclus. xiii. 1.

2. (Geol.)

Definition: See Pitchstone. Amboyna pitch, the resin of Dammara australis. See Kauri.

– Burgundy pitch. See under Burgundy.

– Canada pitch, the resinous exudation of the hemlock tree (Abies Canadensis); hemlock gum.

– Jew's pitch, bitumen.

– Mineral pitch. See Bitumen and Asphalt.

– Pitch coal (Min.), bituminous coal.

– Pitch peat (Min.), a black homogeneous peat, with a waxy luster.

– Pitch pine (Bot.), any one of several species of pine, yielding pitch, esp. the Pinus rigida of North America.

Pitch, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pitched; p. pr. & vb. n. Pitching.] Etym: [See Pitch, n.]

1. To cover over or smear with pitch. Gen. vi. 14.

2. Fig.: To darken; to blacken; to obscure. The welkin pitched with sullen could. Addison.

Pitch, v. t. Etym: [OE. picchen; akin to E. pick, pike.]

1. To throw, generally with a definite aim or purpose; to cast; to hurl; to toss; as, to pitch quoits; to pitch hay; to pitch a ball.

2. To thrust or plant in the ground, as stakes or poles; hence, to fix firmly, as by means of poles; to establish; to arrange; as, to pitch a tent; to pitch a camp.

3. To set, face, or pave with rubble or undressed stones, as an embankment or a roadway. Knight.

4. To fix or set the tone of; as, to pitch a tune.

5. To set or fix, as a price or value. [Obs.] Shak. Pitched battle, a general battle; a battle in which the hostile forces have fixed positions; -- in distinction from a skirmish.

– To pitch into, to attack; to assault; to abuse. [Slang]

Pitch, v. i.

1. To fix or place a tent or temporary habitation; to encamp. "Laban with his brethren pitched in the Mount of Gilead." Gen. xxxi. 25.

2. To light; to settle; to come to rest from flight. The tree whereon they [the bees] pitch. Mortimer.

3. To fix one's choise; -- with on or upon. Pitch upon the best course of life, and custom will render it the more easy. Tillotson.

4. To plunge or fall; esp., to fall forward; to decline or slope; as, to pitch from a precipice; the vessel pitches in a heavy sea; the field pitches toward the east. Pitch and pay, an old aphorism which inculcates ready-money payment, or payment on delivery of goods. Shak.

Pitch, n.

1. A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand; as, a good pitch in quoits. Pitch and toss, a game played by tossing up a coin, and calling "Heads or tails;" hence: To play pitch and toss with (anything), to be careless or trust to luck about it. "To play pitch and toss with the property of the country." G. Eliot.

– Pitch farthing. See Chuck farthing, under 5th Chuck.

2. (Cricket)

Definition: That point of the ground on which the ball pitches or lights when bowled.

3. A point or peak; the extreme point or degree of elevation or depression; hence, a limit or bound. Driven headlong from the pitch of heaven, down Into this deep. Milton. Enterprises of great pitch and moment. Shak. To lowest pitch of abject fortune. Milton. He lived when learning was at its highest pitch. Addison. The exact pitch, or limits, where temperance ends. Sharp.

4. Height; stature. [Obs.] Hudibras.

5. A descent; a fall; a thrusting down.

6. The point where a declivity begins; hence, the declivity itself; a descending slope; the degree or rate of descent or slope; slant; as, a steep pitch in the road; the pitch of a roof.

7. (Mus.)

Definition: The relative acuteness or gravity of a tone, determined by the number of vibrations which produce it; the place of any tone upon a scale of high and low.

Note: Musical tones with reference to absolute pitch, are named after the first seven letters of the alphabet; with reference to relative pitch, in a series of tones called the scale, they are called one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Eight is also one of a new scale an octave higher, as one is eight of a scale an octave lower.

8. (Mining)

Definition: The limit of ground set to a miner who receives a share of the ore taken out.

9. (Mech.) (a) The distance from center to center of any two adjacent teeth of gearing, measured on the pitch line; -- called also circular pitch. (b) The length, measured along the axis, of a complete turn of the thread of a screw, or of the helical lines of the blades of a screw propeller. (c) The distance between the centers of holes, as of rivet holes in boiler plates. Concert pitch (Mus.), the standard of pitch used by orchestras, as in concerts, etc.

– Diametral pitch (Gearing), the distance which bears the same relation to the pitch proper, or circular pitch, that the diameter of a circle bears to its circumference; it is sometimes described by the number expressing the quotient obtained by dividing the number of teeth in a wheel by the diameter of its pitch circle in inches; as, 4 pitch, 8 pitch, etc.

– Pitch chain, a chain, as one made of metallic plates, adapted for working with a sprocket wheel.

– Pitch line, or Pitch circle (Gearing), an ideal line, in a toothed gear or rack, bearing such a relation to a corresponding line in another gear, with which the former works, that the two lines will have a common velocity as in rolling contact; it usually cuts the teeth at about the middle of their height, and, in a circular gear, is a circle concentric with the axis of the gear; the line, or circle, on which the pitch of teeth is measured.

– Pitch of a roof (Arch.), the inclination or slope of the sides expressed by the height in parts of the span; as, one half pitch; whole pitch; or by the height in parts of the half span, especially among engineers; or by degrees, as a pitch of 30°, of 45°, etc.; or by the rise and run, that is, the ratio of the height to the half span; as, a pitch of six rise to ten run. Equilateral pitch is where the two sloping sides with the span form an equilateral triangle.

– Pitch of a plane (Carp.), the slant of the cutting iron.

– Pitch pipe, a wind instrument used by choristers in regulating the pitch of a tune.

– Pitch point (Gearing), the point of contact of the pitch lines of two gears, or of a rack and pinion, which work together.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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