pit

 

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /pɪt/, [pʰɪʔt]

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪt

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.

pit (plural pits)

1. A hole in the ground.

   The meadow around the town is full of old pits.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 26:27:

     27 Whoso diggeth a pit, shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will returne vpon him.

2. (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.

3. (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.
4. A mine.
5. (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.
   • 1991 [1987], Zou Zongxu, translated by Susan Whitfield, The Land Within the Passes: A History of Xian‎^[2], Viking, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 68:

     The exact sites of Feng and Hao have yet to be verified, but seven pits containing chariots, horses and other Zhou burial objects were discovered at Fengxi, and a concentration of Western Zhou relics and tombs was found in the area of Doumen in Changan County on the east bank of the Feng River.

6. (trading) A trading pit.
7. (colloquial) Armpit.
8. (aviation) A luggage hold.
9. (countable) A small surface hole or depression, a fossa.
   • 2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     [The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […].

10. The indented mark left by a pustule, as in smallpox.
11. The grave, underworld or Hell.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

      Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained.

    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job xxxiii:18:

      He keepeth back his soul from the pit.

12. An enclosed area into which gamecocks, dogs, and other animals are brought to fight, or where dogs are trained to kill rats.
    • 1693, [John Locke], “§145”, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], →OCLC:

      as fiercely as two game-cocks in the pit

14. Formerly, that part of a theatre, on the floor of the house, below the level of the stage and behind the orchestra; now, in England, commonly the part behind the stalls; in the United States, the parquet; also, the occupants of such a part of a theatre.
15. (gambling) Part of a casino which typically holds tables for blackjack, craps, roulette, and other games.
16. (in the plural, with the, slang) Only used in the pits.

    His circus job was the pits, but at least he was in show business.

17. (slang) A mosh pit.

    Because the museum was closed for renovation, the school decided to bring its fourth-graders to the pit at a Cannibal Corpse gig instead.

18. (American football) The center of the line.
    • 2007, Bob Swope, Youth Football Drills and Plays Handbook, page 29:

      The ball carrier can be with or without a football. For the “Head-On” tackle have the “Ball Carrier” stand right in front of the pit and face the tackler.

    • 2018, Paul Zimmerman, The New Thinking Man's Guide to Professional Football:

      “They don't call the middle of the line The Pit for nothing. We really do get like animals, trying to claw one another apart in there. It is very hard in The Pit. No matter how it seems, no matter what the score shows, it's always hard. […]

19. (hospital slang) The emergency department.
20. (Antarctica and UK, military, slang) A bed.
    • 2009, Julian Beirne, Diary of a Sapper, page 55:

      Many Bacardi & Cokes later I climbed up into my pit and fell into a deep sleep, and woke up at one thirty in the morning and threw up my tea.

21. (informal) An undesirable location, especially an unclean one.

    This house is a total pit. We've got to get out of here!

    Get back to the pit, dish bitch!

    • 1979 April 28, Eric Rofes, “New Yech, New Yech”, in Gay Community News, page 14:

      The plot takes us through the "sleaze pits", the lower West Side leather bars, which Travis notes with undue repulsion.

pit (third-person singular simple present pits, present participle pitting, simple past and past participle pitted)

1. (transitive) To make pits in; to mark with little hollows.

   Exposure to acid rain pitted the metal.

2. (transitive) To put (an animal) into a pit for fighting.
3. (transitive) To bring (something) into opposition with something else.

   Are you ready to pit your wits against one of the world's greatest puzzles?

   • 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, AV Club, The Hunger Games‎^[3]:

     For the 75 years since a district rebellion was put down, The Games have existed as an assertion of the Capital’s power, a winner-take-all contest that touts heroism and sacrifice—participants are called “tributes”— while pitting the districts against each other.

   • 2017 August 25, Aukkarapon Niyomyat & Panarat Thepgumpanat, "Thai junta seeks Yingluck's arrest as former PM skips court verdict", in reuters.com, Reuters

     That movement, pitted against a Bangkok-centered royalist and pro-military elite, has been at the heart of years of turmoil.

   • 2017 August 25, "Arrest threat as Yingluck Shinawatra misses verdict", in aljazeera.com, Al Jazeera

     Thaksin's ouster triggered years of upheaval and division that has pitted a poor, rural majority in the north that supports the Shinawatras against royalists, the military and their urban backers.

4. (intransitive, motor racing) To return to the pits during a race for refuelling, tyre changes, repairs etc.
   • 2020 September 13, Andrew Benson, “Tuscan Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton claims 90th win after incredible race”, in BBC Sport‎^[4]:

     Bottas had to pit earlier than expected for fresh tyres. Hamilton followed him in next time around and the two drivers were instructed to stay off the kerbs to protect their tyres.

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.

pit (plural pits)

1. (Northern US) A seed inside a fruit; a stone or pip inside a fruit.
2. A shell in a drupe containing a seed.
3. (military) The core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it.
   • 1996, “2 Background”, in :w:National Research Council (United States), editor, An Evaluation of the Electrometallurgical Approach for Treatment of Excess Weapons Plutonium, Washington DC, USA: National Academies Press, →DOI, page 15:

     [...] weapons "pits" (the plutonium components of nuclear weapons, named by analogy with the pit of a fruit such as a peach), [...].

   • 1999, Anne C Fitzpatrick, Igniting the Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952‎^[5], Los Alamos, NM (United States): Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), →DOI, Thesis LA-13577-T, page 248:

     The Nagasaki-type [bomb] [...] had a wider range of yield potential depending on the kind of fissile core and tamper assembly, or "pit," used in it.

pit (third-person singular simple present pits, present participle pitting, simple past and past participle pitted)

1. (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.

Shortening.

pit (plural pits)

1. (informal) A pit bull terrier.

   Synonyms: (informal) pibble, pit bull, (informal) pittie, (pejorative) shitbull, (slang) velvet hippo

   • 2012, Shorty Rossi, Four Feet Tall and Rising, page 186:

     I resolved to find all my pits good homes and to get out of the rescue and breeding business.

•   pit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• pit-a-pat (probably etymologically unrelated)

• ITP, PTI, TIP, TPI, tip, tpi

pít

1. road, path, way

Inherited from Old Catalan pit (also pits), from Latin pectus, from Proto-Italic *pektos, from Proto-Indo-European *peg- (“breast”). Compare Occitan pièch, French pis, Spanish pecho.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈpit]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -it

pit m (plural pits)

1. breast

   Synonym: mamella

2. (castells) force to support the castell, provided by the castellers in the pinya by pressing their chest onto the back of the casteller in front of them

• apitrar
• espitregar

• “pit” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “pit” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• IPA^(key): [ˈpɪt]

pit

1. masculine singular passive participle of pít

• IPA^(key): /pɪt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pit
• Rhymes: -ɪt

From Middle Dutch pitte, from Proto-Germanic *pittan (compare dialectal German Pfitze (“pimple”)), oblique of Proto-Germanic *piþō.

pit m or f (plural pitten, diminutive pitje n)

1. a seed inside a fruit
2. wick (of a candle, lamp or other implement)

   Synonyms: lemmet, lont, wiek

3. burner (on a stove)
4. spirit, vigour

   Hij heeft pit. ― He has something going for him.

• → English: pit

Borrowed from English pit.

pit m (plural pits)

1. (motor racing) pit (refueling station and garage at a race track)

• tip

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈpit/ [ˈpɪt̪̚]
• Rhymes: -it
• Syllabification: pit

Borrowed from Javanese ꦥꦶꦠ꧀ (pit), from Dutch fiets.^[1]

pit

1. (dialectal) Synonym of sepeda (“bicycle”)

Borrowed from Hokkien 筆／笔 (pit, “inkbrush”).

pit

1. calligraphy brush; inkbrush

   Synonym: mopit

Borrowed from English pit.

pit

1. (motor racing) pit (an area at a racetrack used for refueling and repairing the vehicles during a race)

• “pit” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

From Old Irish pit (“pit, hollow; female pudenda”), possibly related to putte (“pit, hollow”), Latin puteus.

pit f (genitive singular pite, nominative plural piteanna)

1. (anatomy) vulva
2. shell-less crab

• piteog f, piteachán m, piteán m (“effeminate man, sissy”)

• faighin (“vagina”)

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “pit”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “pit, (put)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “vulva”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
• “pit”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013-2024

pit

1. Romanization of ꦥꦶꦠ꧀

• IPA^(key): /pʲit/

pit

1. supine of piś

• IPA^(key): /ˈpit/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -it
• Syllabification: pit
• Homophone: PIT

pit f

1. genitive plural of pita

• IPA^(key): /pɪt/

pit (third-person singular simple present pits, present participle pittin, simple past pit, past participle pit)

1. to put

   Synonym: putt

From Old Irish pit (“pit, hollow; female pudenda”), possibly related to putte (“pit, hollow”), Latin puteus.

pit f (genitive singular pite, plural pitean)

1. female external genitalia, vulva
2. (vulgar) cunt, pussy

• Edward Dwelly (1911) “pit”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary]‎^[6], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “pit, (put)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

pit ?

1. gall, bile

From Middle Dutch pit, variant of put, from Old Dutch *putti, from Proto-West Germanic *puti (“a well”).

pit m

1. pit
2. well

pit

1. Alternative form of pidh
   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 9, page 88:

     Fan Cournug yate a rishp, an Treblere pit w'eeme.

     When Cournug gave a stroke, and Treblere put with him.

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 62