pitch

noun · verb · adjective

Simple meaning

A dark, extremely viscous material still remaining after distilling crude oil and tar.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pich

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɪtʃ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

A dark, extremely viscous material still remaining after distilling crude oil and tar.
A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand.
An effort to sell or promote something.
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 angle at which an object sits.
The rotation angle about the transverse axis.

verb

Throw or toss with a light motion
transitive
To throw away; discard.
transitive
To promote, advertise, or attempt to sell.
transitive
To deliver in a certain tone or style, or with a certain audience in mind.
Erect and fasten
transitive
To assemble or erect (a tent). Also used figuratively.

adjective

of a black color
Intense, deep, dark.
Very dark black; pitch-black.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: B1 · Intermediate
Frequency: Common
Typical Use: Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A dark, extremely viscous material still remaining after distilling crude oil and tar.

Used this way, pitch is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Moderate
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: Matter-of-fact
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use pitch

“She pitched over the railing of the balcony.”verb
“She pitched her speech to the teenagers in the audience.”verb

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

high pitchsales pitchfever pitchlow pitchpitch anglepitch pinefirst pitchpitch diameter

Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

pitchernounInflected form
The person who does the pitching.
pitchingnounInflected form
Playing the position of pitcher on a baseball team.
pitchedadjectiveInflected form
Set to a certain pitch or key.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

pitch accentnounCompound term
Emphasis that results from pitch rather than loudness.
pitch applenounCompound term
A common tropical American clusia having solitary white or rose flowers.
pitch blacknounCompound term
A very dark black.
pitch blacknessnounCompound term
Total absence of light.
pitch contournounCompound term
Rise and fall of the voice pitch.
pitch inverbCompound term
Eat heartily.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

pitchforknounRelated term
A long-handled hand tool with sharp widely spaced prongs for lifting and pitching hay.

Use This Word

See how this word sounds in a real sentence.

Ask Vocabaura

Understand the word your way.

What Does It Mean Here?

Words can change meaning depending on context.

Use it yourself

Knowing “pitch” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.

Know the meaning? Practice using it in a real situation, free, no credits.

Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.