pit
/pɪt/ noun, verb
Forms pits pitting pitted PITT Pitt. Pit.
- noun A hole in the ground. “The meadow around the town is full of old pits.”
- noun (motor racing) An area at a racetrack used for refueling and repairing the vehicles during a race. “Two drivers have already gone into the pit this early in the race.”
- noun (music) The section of a marching band containing mallet percussion instruments and other large percussion instruments too large to be marched, such as the tam-tam; the front ensemble. Can also refer to the area on the sidelines where these instruments are placed.
- noun A mine.
- noun (archaeology) A hole or trench in the ground, excavated according to grid coordinates, so that the provenance of any feature observed and any specimen or artifact revealed may be established by precise measurement.
- noun (trading) A trading pit.
- noun (colloquial) An armpit.
- noun (aviation) A luggage hold.
- verb (transitive) To make pits in; to mark with little hollows. “Exposure to acid rain pitted the metal.”
- verb (transitive) To put (an animal) into a pit for fighting.
- verb (transitive) To bring (something) into opposition with something else. “Are you ready to pit your wits against one of the world's greatest puzzles?”
- verb (intransitive, motor racing) To return to the pits during a race for refuelling, tyre changes, repairs etc.
- noun (Northern US) A seed inside a fruit; a stone or pip inside a fruit.
- noun (military) The core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it.
- verb (transitive) To remove the stone from a stone fruit or the shell from a drupe. “One must pit a peach to make it ready for a pie.”
- noun (informal) A pit bull terrier.
- verb To use the PIT maneuver, especially during a car chase.
Synonyms
seed pit stone pyrena pyrene pip pibble pit bull pittie shitbull velvet hippo cavity fossa endocarp Hell perdition Inferno infernal region nether region pitfall quarry stone pit orchestra pit colliery oppose match play off scar mark pock
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English pit, pet, püt, from Old English pytt, from Proto-West Germanic *puti, from Latin puteus (“trench, pit, well”), although there are phonetic difficulties.
From Dutch pit (“kernel, core”), from Middle Dutch pitte, from Proto-Germanic *pittan (compare dialectal German Pfitze (“pimple”)), oblique of Proto-Germanic *piþō. Compare pith.
Shortening.
From PIT maneuver.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A large cavity or hole in the ground, either natural or artificial; a cavity in the surface of a body; an indentation; specifically: (a) The shaft of a coal mine; a coal pit. (b) A large hole in the ground from which material is dug or quarried; as, a stone pit; a gravel pit; or in which material is made by burning; as, a lime pit; a charcoal pit. (c) A vat sunk in the ground; as, a tan pit. Tumble me into some loathsome pit. Shak.
- noun Any abyss; especially, the grave, or hades.
- verb To place or put into a pit or hole.
- verb To mark with little hollows, as by various pustules; as, a face pitted by smallpox.
Etymology [OE. pit, put, AS. pytt a pit, hole, L. puteus a well, pit.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pit”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details