pitch

Etymology 1

From Middle English picche, piche, pich, from Old English piċ, from Proto-West Germanic *pik, from Latin pix. Cognate with Ancient Greek πίσσα (píssa, “pitch, tar”), Latin pīnus (“pine”). More at pine. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Pik (“pitch, tar”), Dutch pek (“pitch, tar”), German Low German Pick (“pitch, tar”), German Pech (“pitch, tar”), Catalan pega (“pitch”), Spanish pegar (“to stick, glue”), Franco-Provençal pouatche (“sap from a pine”) and French poix (“sap”).

noun

1. A sticky, gummy substance secreted by trees; sap.
   It is hard to get this pitch off my hand.
2. 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.
3. (geology) Pitchstone.

verb

1. To cover or smear with pitch.
2. To darken; to blacken; to obscure.
   1704 (published), year written unknown, John Dryden, On the Death of Amyntas Soon he found / The welkin pitch'd with sullen clouds.

Etymology 2

From Middle English picchen, pycchen (“to thrust in, fasten, settle”), from Old English *piċċan, from Proto-West Germanic *pikkijan, a variant of Proto-West Germanic *pikkōn (“to pick, peck”), whence Middle English pikken, picken (“to pick, pierce”), modern English pick.

noun

1. A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand.
   a good pitch in quoits
2. (baseball) The act of pitching a baseball.
   The pitch was low and inside.
3. (sports, UK, Australia, New Zealand) The field on which cricket, soccer, rugby, gridiron or field hockey is played. (In cricket, the pitch is in the centre of the field; see cricket pitch.) (Not often used in the US or Canada, where "field" is the preferred word.)
   The teams met on the pitch.
4. (rare) The field of battle.
   The two men of Alltraighe maintain, Two chiefs of the plain of Kerry, A clan the most active in pitch of battle, Their chiefs are O’Neide and Clan Conary. 1845, Owen Connellan, Annals of Ireland: Translated from the Original Irish of the Four Masters, page 179
   Every other day they would spend half of the training hours on the battle pitch. 2015, SK Benton, Lives of Future-Past
   George’s cult was popular in the east because of his legendary feats on the battle pitch and because of the location of his tomb, which was a pilgrimage site. 2018, Christopher R. Lakey, Sculptural Seeing: Relief, Optics and the Rise of Perspectives in Medieval Italy, page 84
5. An effort to sell or promote something.
   He gave me a sales pitch.
6. The distance between evenly spaced objects, e.g. the teeth of a saw or gear, the turns of a screw thread, the centres of holes, or letters in a monospace font.
   The pitch of pixels on the point scale is 72 pixels per inch.
   The pitch of this saw is perfect for that type of wood.
   A helical scan with a pitch of zero is equivalent to constant z-axis scanning.
7. The angle at which an object sits.
   the pitch of the roof or haystack
8. The rotation angle about the transverse axis.
   1. (nautical, aviation) The degree to which a vehicle, especially a ship or aircraft, rotates on such an axis, tilting its bow or nose up or down. Compare with roll, yaw, and heave.
      the pitch of an aircraft
   2. (aviation) A measure of the angle of attack of a propeller.
      The propeller blades' pitch went to 90° as the engine was feathered.
9. An area in a market (or similar) allocated to a particular trader.
10. (by extension) The place where a busker performs, a prostitute solicits clients, or an illegal gambling game etc. is set up before the public.
    Another reason is that the prostitute who makes her pitch at Marble Arch stands a chance of being picked up by an out-of-town business man stopping at one of the hotels in the vicinity, and of being treated to a steak dinner […] 1975, Tom A. Cullen, The Prostitutes' Padre, page 94
11. An area on a campsite intended for occupation by a single tent, caravan or similar.
12. A level or degree, or (by extension), a peak or highest degree.
    He lived at a time when learning was at its highest pitch. September 28, 1710, Joseph Addison, Whig-Examiner No. 2
    But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity 1748, David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral, Oxford University Press, published 1973, section 11
    In this poem his 'vernacular' bluster and garish misrhymes build to a pitch of rowdy anarchy […] 2014, James Booth, Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love, page 190
13. A point or peak; the extreme point of elevation or depression.
14. The most thrust-out point of a headland or cape.
    From the pitch of Cape-Fraward, to the pitch of Cape-Holland, the Streight lies in the Channel West and by North, nearest, and is distant full five Leagues; 2014, John Narborough, Abel Tasman, John Wood, An Account of Several Late Voyages and Discoveries to the South and North
15. (obsolete, uncountable) Collectively, the outermost points of some part of the body, especially the shoulders or hips.
16. The height a bird reaches in flight, especially a bird of prey preparing to swoop down on its prey.
17. (now Britain, regional) A person's or animal's height.
18. Prominence; importance.
19. (climbing) A section of a climb or rock face; specifically, the climbing distance between belays or stances.
    You lead "through" instead — your companion leads a pitch, then you join him. But instead of swapping over at the ice axe belay, you carry on in the lead, cutting or kicking steps until you are about twenty feet above. 1967, Anthony Greenbank, Instructions in Mountaineering, page 84
20. (caving) A vertical cave passage, only negotiable by using rope or ladders.
    The entrance pitch requires 30 metres of rope.
21. (cricket) That point of the ground on which the ball pitches or lights when bowled.
22. A descent; a fall; a thrusting down.
23. The point where a declivity begins; hence, the declivity itself; a descending slope; the degree or rate of descent or slope; slant.
    a steep pitch in the road
    the pitch of a roof
24. (mining) The limit of ground set to a miner who receives a share of the ore taken out.

verb

1. (transitive) To throw.
   He pitched the horseshoe.
2. (transitive or intransitive, baseball) To throw (the ball) toward a batter at home plate.
   The hurler pitched a curveball.
   He pitched high and inside.
3. (intransitive, baseball) To play baseball in the position of pitcher.
   Bob pitches today.
4. (transitive) To throw away; discard.
   He pitched the candy wrapper.
5. (transitive) To promote, advertise, or attempt to sell.
   He pitched the idea for months with no takers.
6. (transitive) To deliver in a certain tone or style, or with a certain audience in mind.
   At which level should I pitch my presentation?
7. (transitive) To assemble or erect (a tent).
   Pitch the tent over there.
8. (intransitive) To fix or place a tent or temporary habitation; to encamp.
9. (transitive, intransitive, aviation or nautical) To move so that the front of an aircraft or boat goes alternatively up and down.
   Half a dozen deserted boats pitched aimlessly upon the confusion of the waves. 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 103
   The typhoon pitched the deck of the ship.
   The airplane pitched.
10. (transitive, 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.
11. (intransitive, cricket) To bounce on the playing surface.
    The ball pitched well short of the batsman.
12. (intransitive, Bristol, of snow) To settle and build up, without melting.
13. (intransitive, archaic) To alight; to settle; to come to rest from flight.
14. (with on or upon) To fix one's choice.
    Pitch upon the best course of life, and custom will render it the more easy. a. 1694, John Tillotson, The Precepts of Christianity not grievous
15. (intransitive) To plunge or fall; especially, to fall forward; to decline or slope.
    to pitch from a precipice
    The field pitches toward the east.
16. (transitive, of an embankment, roadway) To set, face, or pave with rubble or undressed stones.
    […]pitch the road with hard stones [rather] than to break them up for a road covering 1838, Thomas Hughes, The Practice of Making & Repairing Roads
17. (transitive, of a price, value) To set or fix.
18. (transitive, card games, slang, of a card) To discard for some gain.
19. To attack, or position or assemble for attack.
    They pitched at the waters of Merom. These waters of Merom are generally thought to be nothing but the lake of Semechon,[…] 1801, Thomas Coke, chapter 11, in A Commentary on the Holy Bible: Commentary on the Old Teatament, Joshua, verse 5, page 51
    “Vy don’t you pitch into her Sarah?” exclaims one half-dressed matron by way of encouragement. 1866, Charles Dickens, Works: Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People with Illustrations by George Cruikshank, page 65
    Yet I sometimes long to pitch at him for daring to lift his eyes this way; I always feel the blood tingling at my finger’s end whenever he crosses my path. 1868, Rock Ruin; or the Daughter of the Island, page 23
    On the seventh day after the two armies were pitched against each other in the plain before Aphek the battle was joined, the Syrians were routed, and a hundred thousand of their foot-men were slain in one day. 1886, James Osgood Andrew Clark, Elijah Vindicated: Or The Answer by Fire, page 378
    The Philistines, hearing that Israel were assembled at Mizpeh, raised an army and pitched against them. 1892, Louis Barnett Abrahams, A Manual of Scripture History for Use in Jewish Schools and Families, page 72
    He would pitch into her, and pitch into himself, and then he would dwell on her good qualities, […] 2015, William Dean Howells, Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells
    If Spain was to fight in the Americas, for example, the Royal Navy could pitch against it over 300 ships in the seventies (Morris 2011:13-32), deployed in various parts of the world. 2016, A. González Enciso, War, Power and the Economy: Mercantilism and state formation in 18th-century Europe, page 144

Etymology 3

Unknown. Perhaps related to the above sense of level or degree, or influenced by it.

noun

1. (music, phonetics) The perceived frequency of a sound or note.
   The pitch of middle "C" is familiar to many musicians.
2. (music) The standard to which a group of musical instruments are tuned or in which a piece is performed, usually by reference to the frequency to which the musical note A above middle C is tuned.
   Are we in baroque pitch for this one?
3. (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

1. (intransitive) To produce a note of a given pitch.
2. (transitive) To fix or set the tone of.
   His "hello" was enough to recognize his voice by. I pitched mine low so he wouldn't know it. 1955 October, Rex Stout, “Die Like a Dog”, in Three Witnesses, Bantam, published 1994, pages 196–197