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.
Related terms
* absolute pitch
* perfect pitch
* pitch-a-fit
* pitch a tent
* pitch and putt
* pitch class
* pitcher
* pitchfork
* pitch in
* pitch-pipe
* pitch up
* pitch upon
* relative pitch
* sales pitch
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:
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unpitched English
Adjective
( -)
Not having been pitched.
- An unpitched tent is just a pile of fabric.
(music) Without pitch.
* 2006 , Anssi Klapuri, Manuel Davy, Signal processing methods for music transcription
- In particular, the vast majority of research to date has focused on the unpitched percussion instruments found in Western popular music
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