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Pitch vs Key - What's the difference?

pitch | key |

As a noun pitch

is a sticky, gummy substance secreted by trees; sap or pitch can be a throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand or pitch can be (music) the perceived frequency of a sound or note.

As a verb pitch

is to cover or smear with pitch or pitch can be (senseid)to throw or pitch can be to produce a note of a given pitch.

As a proper noun key is

.

pitch

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) . Cognate with Dutch pek, German Pech.

Noun

(es)
  • A sticky, gummy substance secreted by trees; sap.
  • It is hard to get this pitch off of my hand.
  • A dark, extremely viscous material remaining in still after distilling crude oil and tar.
  • They put pitch''' on the mast to protect it.'' ''The barrel was sealed with '''pitch .
    It was pitch black because there was no moon.
  • (geology) pitchstone
  • Derived terms
    * pitch-black, pitchblack * pitchblende

    Verb

    (es)
  • To cover or smear with pitch.
  • To darken; to blacken; to obscure.
  • * Addison
  • Soon he found / The welkin pitched with sullen cloud.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) picchen, . More at pick.

    Noun

    (es)
  • A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand.
  • (senseid)(baseball) The act of pitching a baseball.
  • (sports) 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 .
  • An effort to sell or promote something.
  • The distance between evenly spaced objects, e.g. the teeth of a saw, the turns of a screw thread, or letters in a monospace font.
  • A helical scan with a pitch of zero is equivalent to constant z-axis scanning.
  • The angle at which an object sits.
  • More specifically, the rotation angle about the transverse axis.
  • A level or degree.
  • (aviation) A measure of the degree to which an aircraft's nose tilts up or down.
  • (aviation) A measure of the angle of attack of a propeller.
  • (nautical) The measure of extent to which a nautical vessel rotates on its athwartships axis, causing its bow and stern to go up and down. Compare with roll, yaw and heave.
  • The place where a busker performs.
  • An area in a market (or similar) allocated to a particular trader.
  • A point or peak; the extreme point or degree of elevation or depression; hence, a limit or bound.
  • * 1748 , (David Hume), (w) , Oxford University Press (1973), section 11:
  • But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity
  • * (John Milton)
  • Driven headlong from the pitch of heaven, down / Into this deep.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • Enterprises of great pitch and moment.
  • * Addison
  • He lived when learning was at its highest pitch .
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=In the eyes of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke the apotheosis of the Celebrity was complete. The people of Asquith were not only willing to attend the house-warming, but had been worked up to the pitch of eagerness.}}
  • (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.
  • A person or animal's height.
  • *, II.3.2:
  • Alba the emperor was crook-backed, Epictetus lame; that great Alexander a little man of stature, Augustus Cæsar of the same pitch  […].
    (Hudibras)
  • 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.
  • (engineering) The distance from centre to centre of any two adjacent teeth of gearing, measured on the pitch line; called also circular pitch .
  • 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.
  • The distance between the centres of holes, as of rivet holes in boiler plates.
  • Verb

    (es)
  • (senseid)To throw.
  • He pitched the horseshoe.
  • (transitive, or, intransitive, baseball) To throw (the ball) toward home plate.
  • The hurler pitched a curveball.
    He pitched high and inside.
  • (baseball) To play baseball in the position of pitcher.
  • Bob pitches today.
  • To throw away; discard.
  • He pitched the candy wrapper.
  • To promote, advertise, or attempt to sell.
  • He pitched the idea for months with no takers.
  • To deliver in a certain tone or style, or with a certain audience in mind.
  • At which level should I pitch my presentation?
  • To assemble or erect (a tent).
  • Pitch the tent over there.
  • To fix or place a tent or temporary habitation; to encamp.
  • * Bible, Genesis xxxi. 25
  • Laban with his brethren pitched in the Mount of Gilead.
  • (ambitransitive, aviation, or, nautical) To move so that the front of an aircraft or ship goes alternatively up and down.
  • The typhoon pitched the deck of the ship.
    The airplane pitched .
  • (golf) To play a short, high, lofty shot that lands with backspin.
  • The only way to get on the green from here is to pitch the ball over the bunker.
  • (cricket) To bounce on the playing surface.
  • The ball pitched well short of the batsman.
  • (intransitive, Bristol, of snow) To settle and build up, without melting.
  • To alight; to settle; to come to rest from flight.
  • * Mortimer
  • the tree whereon they [the bees] pitch
  • To fix one's choice; with on'' or ''upon .
  • * Tillotson
  • Pitch upon the best course of life, and custom will render it the more easy.
  • To plunge or fall; especially, to fall forward; to decline or slope.
  • to pitch from a precipice
    The vessel pitches in a heavy sea.
    The field pitches toward the east.
  • To set, face, or pave with rubble or undressed stones, as an embankment or a roadway.
  • (Knight)
  • To set or fix, as a price or value.
  • (Shakespeare)
  • To discard a card for some gain.
  • Etymology 3

    Unknown

    Noun

    (es)
  • (music) The perceived frequency of a sound or note.
  • The pitch of middle "C" is familiar to many musicians.
  • (music) In an a cappella group, the singer responsible for singing a note for the other members to tune themselves by.
  • Bob, our pitch , let out a clear middle "C" and our conductor gave the signal to start.

    Verb

    (es)
  • To produce a note of a given pitch.
  • To fix or set the tone of.
  • to pitch a tune

    References

    * * Notes:

    key

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) keye, kaye, . For the semantic development, note that medieval keys were simply long poles (ending in a hook) with which a crossbar obstructing a door from the inside could be removed from the outside, by lifting it through a hole in the door.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An object designed to open and close a lock.
  • * , chapter=13
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=We tiptoed into the house, up the stairs and along the hall into the room where the Professor had been spending so much of his time. 'Twas locked, of course, but the Deacon man got a big bunch of keys out of his pocket and commenced to putter with the lock.}}
  • An object designed to fit between two other objects (such as a shaft and a wheel) in a mechanism and maintain their relative orientation.
  • A crucial step or requirement.
  • * (John Locke) (1632-1705)
  • Those who are accustomed to reason have got the true key of books.
  • * (1809-1892)
  • who keeps the keys of all the creeds
  • A guide explaining the symbols or terminology of a map or chart; a legend.
  • A guide to the correct answers of a worksheet or test.
  • (label) One of several small, usually square buttons on a typewriter or computer keyboard, mostly corresponding to text characters.
  • (label) One of a number of rectangular moving parts on a piano or musical keyboard, each causing a particular sound or note to be produced.
  • (label) One of various levers on a musical instrument used to select notes, such as a lever opening a hole on a woodwind.
  • (label) A hierarchical scale of musical notes on which a composition is based.
  • * 1881 , R.L. Stevenson, :
  • A girl, it is true, has always lived in a glass house among reproving relatives, whose word was law; she has been bred up to sacrifice her judgments and take the key submissively from dear papa; and it is wonderful how swiftly she can change her tune into the husband's.
  • (label) The general pitch or tone of a sentence or utterance.
  • * (William Cowper) (1731-1800)
  • You fall at once into a lower key .
  • (label) An indehiscent, one-seeded fruit furnished with a wing, such as the fruit of the ash and maple; a samara.
  • (label) A manual electrical switching device primarily used for the transmission of Morse code.
  • (label) A piece of information (e.g. a passphrase) used to encode or decode a message or messages.
  • (label) A password restricting access to an IRC channel.
  • * 2000 , "Robert Erdec", Re: Help; mIRC32; unable to resolve server arnes.si'' (on newsgroup ''alt.irc.mirc )
  • if you know someone who is in the channel, you can query them and ask for the key .
  • (label) In a relational database, a field used as an index into another table (not necessarily unique).
  • (label) A value that uniquely identifies an entry in an associative array.
  • (label) The free-throw lane together with the circle surrounding the free-throw line, the free-throw lane having formerly been narrower, giving the area the shape of a skeleton key hole.
  • (label) A series of logically organized groups of discriminating information which aims to allow the user to correctly identify a taxon.
  • (label) Kilogram (though this is more commonly shortened to kay ).
  • * 2010 , David J. Silas, Da Block (page 41)
  • So starting with ten keys' of cocaine and two ' keys of heroin, Derrick put his plan in motion. Soon every major drug dealer and gang chief from Chicago Avenue to Evanston was in his pocket.
  • (label) A piece of wood used as a wedge.
  • (label) The last board of a floor when laid down.
  • (label) A keystone.
  • That part of the plastering which is forced through between the laths and holds the rest in place.
  • (rail transport) A wooden support for a rail on the bullhead rail system.
  • (label) The object used to open or close a lock, often used as a heraldic charge.
  • Derived terms
    (Derived terms) * candidate key * card key * church key * foreign key * keyboard * keycard * key card * keychain, key chain * key fob, keyfob * keyhole * keynote * keypad * keyring, key ring * key signature * keystone * keystroke * keyword * major key * minor key * Morse key * primary key * public-key cryptography * skeleton key * unique key
    See also
    * clef * scale * (wikipedia "key") *

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Indispensable, supremely important.
  • He is the key player on his soccer team.
  • * 2007 , Mark H. Moss, Shopping as an Entertainment Experience (page 46)
  • Lukas intimates that one of Disney's key attractions was "Main Street USA,” which "mimicked a downtown business district just as Southdale" had done.
  • Important, salient.
  • She makes several key points.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=
  • , title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=Throughout the 1500s, the populace roiled over a constellation of grievances of which the forest emerged as a key focal point. The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood.}}
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=September 29 , author=Jon Smith , title=Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=With the north London derby to come at the weekend, Spurs boss Harry Redknapp opted to rest many of his key players, although he brought back Aaron Lennon after a month out through injury.}}
    Usage notes
    The first meaning is distinguished by the definite article, as seen in the quotations.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To fit (a lock) with a key.
  • To fit (pieces of a mechanical assembly) with a key to maintain the orientation between them.
  • To mark or indicate with a symbol indicating membership in a class.
  • * 1996 January, Garden Dsign Ideas , second printing, (Taunton Press), ISBN 1561580791, page 25,
  • So I worked on a tissue-paper copy of the perimeter plan, outlining groupings of plants of the same species and keying them with letters for the species.
  • * 2001 , Bruce M. Metzger, The Bible in Translation , ISBN 0801022827, page 87,
  • The volume closes with thirty pages of "Notes, critical and explanatory," in which Thomson provides seventy-six longer or shorter notes keyed to specific sections of the synopsis.
  • * 2002 , Karen Bromley, Stretching Students' Vocabulary , ISBN 0439288398, page 12,
  • Talk about similarities between the words and write them below to the left of the anchor, keying' them with a plus sign (+). Talk about the characteristics that set the words apart and list them below the box to the right, ' keying them with a tilde sign (~).
  • * 2007 , Stephen Blake Mettee, Michelle Doland and Doris Hall, compilers, The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines , 6th ("2007–2008") edition, ISBN 1884956580, page 757,
  • Indicate the comparative value of each heading by keying it with a number in pencil, in the left margin, as follows:
  • (telegraphy and radio telegraphy) To depress (a telegraph key).
  • (radio) To operate (the transmitter switch of a two-way radio).
  • (computing) (more usually to key in ) To enter (information) by typing on a keyboard or keypad.
  • Our instructor told us to key in our user IDs.
  • (colloquial) To vandalize (a car, etc.) by scratching with an implement such as a key.
  • He keyed the car that had taken his parking spot.
  • To link (as one might do with a key or legend).
  • * 1960 , Richard L. Masland, "Classification of the Epilepsies", in Epilepsia , volume 1, page 516,
  • The American Heart Association has prepared their own guide to classification and, keying it with the Standard Nomenclature of Diseases , have done much to encourage a concise yet complete diagnosis.
  • * '>citation
  • * '>citation
  • (intransitive, biology, chiefly, taxonomy) To be identified as a certain taxon when using a key.
  • To fasten or secure firmly; to fasten or tighten with keys or wedges.
  • (Francis)
    Derived terms
    * key in * key off * key out * keyed up

    Etymology 2

    Variant of cay, from (etyl) cayo.

    Alternative forms

    * cay

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One of a string of small islands.
  • "the Florida Keys "

    Anagrams

    *

    Etymology 3