• | 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. |
• | See Pitchstone. |
• | To cover over or smear with pitch. |
• | Fig.: To darken; to blacken; to obscure. |
• | 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. |
• | 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. |
• | To set, face, or pave with rubble or undressed stones, as
an embankment or a roadway. |
• | To fix or set the tone of; as, to pitch a tune. |
• | To set or fix, as a price or value. |
• | To fix or place a tent or temporary habitation; to
encamp. |
• | To light; to settle; to come to rest from flight. |
• | To fix one's choise; -- with on or upon. |
• | 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. |
• | A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand; as,
a good pitch in quoits. |
• | That point of the ground on which the ball pitches or lights
when bowled. |
• | A point or peak; the extreme point or degree of elevation or
depression; hence, a limit or bound. |
• | Height; stature. |
• | 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; as, a steep pitch in the road; the pitch of a roof. |
• | 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. |
• | The limit of ground set to a miner who receives a share of
the ore taken out. |
• | The distance from center to center 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 centers of holes, as of rivet holes
in boiler plates. |