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pit
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
pit
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a bottomless pit (=a supply with no limits)
▪ The government does not have a bottomless pit of money to spend on public services.
gravel pit (=a place where gravel is dug out of the ground)
mosh pit
orchestra pit
pit bull terrier
pit pony
pit stop
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
bottomless
▪ You both are doomed to the bottomless pits of hell.
▪ You've got to go down into this bottomless pit before you can pick yourself up again.
▪ But somebody ought to tell the filmmakers, who are churning out movies as if demand were a bottomless pit.
▪ It is because pleasure-seeking is a bottomless pit, never satisfied.
▪ Her sleep was black and absolute, as if she had been dropped into a bottomless pit.
▪ Thus, pump-priming has turned into a bottomless pit for the Treasury, in spite of the reinvestment of large receipts from land sales.
▪ And then, suddenly, an open door with a dark, bottomless pit behind it.
dark
▪ It could have been hours or minutes later that Isabel found herself staring into a dark pit.
▪ Then - jump into the deep dark pit, Beano.
▪ Then the trigger as you pull it, then the pellet punching a dark red pit in the rabbit's neck.
▪ At first he will be greatly praised by his people, before sinking down into the dark pit of sin and pride.
▪ And then, suddenly, an open door with a dark, bottomless pit behind it.
deep
▪ Then - jump into the deep dark pit, Beano.
▪ At the distillery, workers mash agave plants with a huge grindstone drawn around a deep circular pit by an ancient tractor.
▪ But open-cast mine workforces, unlike deep-pit miners, are mobile rather than drawn from local residents.
▪ Digging deep pits and building privies.
▪ Buildings were hastily demolished, and ironwork likely to be of use to the natives was buried in a deep pit.
▪ The landfill managers identified a 10-foot-#deep pit 50 feet by 50 feet they believed was where the trash was dumped.
▪ Eventually she would climb out of the deep pit of the subconscious, exhausted.
▪ From its floor rose several lava pillars; eroded, contorted shapes brooding in the deep pit.
large
▪ Some areas appear to be relatively young, with few craters, while other areas are pocked with large craters and pits.
▪ It was associated with large waterlogged pits which contained leather offcuts, dung and other organic residues.
▪ Cerrejon is the second largest open pit coal mine in the world.
▪ A large pit containing over 50 unbroken mid-Antonine samian vessels might well be taken to indicate a pottery shop nearby.
▪ Advantage: the closet is larger than a pit and therefore lasts longer also it is easy to empty.
▪ Why did these large pits near the coast not exist in the last century?
open
▪ Left: Potgietersrus Platinums, the 200,000 ton a month open pit platinum mine was opened on 3 September 1993.
▪ Parys - discovered in 1768 and worked in a Mountain series of open pits and underground mines.
▪ Twisted, starved, naked bodies stacked up like cordwood or tossed into great open pits.
▪ Chromium Chromite has been produced from numerous small open pit workings on Unst in Shetland.
▪ Cerrejon is the second largest open pit coal mine in the world.
▪ This is hosed down from the sides of the open pits.
▪ The near-vertical deposit has been drilled to 300 m depth and could be worked in an open pit.
small
▪ Chromium Chromite has been produced from numerous small open pit workings on Unst in Shetland.
▪ Suspended from a length of string hung over a chair placed beside the small pit was a piece of card.
■ NOUN
bull
▪ Except for the flies that is which had the persistence of pit bull terriers.
▪ He could check it, he supposed, with the new super, a tough-talking veteran with a pit bull.
▪ High Road has tackled all kinds of issues from pit bull terrier fighting to cot death in order to illuminate character.
▪ Everyone knows that terriers are excitable, that pit bulls bite and that all pups urinate on the carpet.
▪ Statistically in San Francisco, pit bulls are over-represented in attacks on people, according to animal control officials.
▪ Animal advocates strongly oppose the practice of denying insurance to owners of pit bulls and Rottweilers.
▪ Do you own a pit bull?
closure
▪ The firm is centralising production in Lancashire, and staff are blaming the job losses on the Government's pit closure programme.
▪ He found himself under severe pressure last year when the pit closure programme was announced.
▪ These ravenous companies claim to provide jobs to communities starved of employment following the pit closures.
▪ Occupancy at Pontins dropped 13% and bookings dipped after pit closures were announced.
▪ The breakaway union is balloting its members for a one-day token strike in protest over the amended pit closure plans.
▪ Barr Thomson blamed the Government's pit closure announcement for its failure.
gravel
▪ Some men pinched all the wages at the gravel pit.
▪ Hand carts and horsedrawn carts wait to carry away building supplies brought from the gravel pits of Middlesex.
▪ Not simply on Tring Reservoirs or the home counties gravel pits do men now sit for a ten pounder anymore.
▪ The money he had stolen from the gravel pits reposed under his bunk in the houseboat.
▪ Wet gravel pits are generally recognised as important habitats for wildlife, particularly in view of the increasing drainage of wetlands.
▪ He crossed the road and went into the gravel pit.
▪ A gravel pit search by divers was put off yesterday as experts continued checking the area.
inspection
▪ The inspection pit and work bench.
▪ Below: The interior of the depot, with its five inspection pits and single-span roof.
▪ The remains of the old Motherwell car are lying in the inspection pit underneath! 3.
lane
▪ His misery was compounded when he was fined for speeding in the pit lane.
▪ The pit lane, though, reckons Red 5 will return.
▪ But a pit lane full of Longines-Olivetti computer gear and Desert Storm-style motor-homes has reduced the role of these companions.
orchestra
▪ He came out on stage and called them all down to the orchestra pit right in front of him.
▪ But there are certain dizzy overtones to her narrative -- she only fell drunk into the orchestra pit once.
▪ There in the hidden orchestra pit sat Fein, less gray, and happy to be working.
sand
▪ Many schools are fortunate to have an outside sand pit as well.
▪ Now suppose we ask Professor Summerlee, after a particular landing in the sand pit, what he has just experienced.
▪ It appears that there has been some misunderstanding with regard to the sand pit cover. 3.
stop
▪ Having reached Aulef and taken on water, that night was a pit stop.
▪ Zanardi opened up a four-second gap over second-place Brian Herta, which Herta made up with a good pit stop.
▪ But three factors suggest their stumbling Christmas represents a pit stop rather than the wheels coming off altogether.
▪ The mistake was the result of an earlier pit stop in which his crew failed to fill his Chevrolet with enough gasoline.
▪ McVeighty gambled on going the complete four laps on one tankful of petrol, while Bell made one pit stop.
village
▪ They could be responsible for managing services covering 4,000 households, a large inner city estate or several former pit villages.
▪ I was brought up in a pit village near Bishop Auckland and I never knew my father.
▪ There are a lot of fields, then a pit village, a pit tip and another dozen fields.
▪ The farmland remained but pit villages, with rows of terraced houses for the miners, were scattered throughout the region.
▪ I live in Glyn-Neath, West Glamorgan, an old pit village with huge unemployment.
▪ Walk down a row of houses in a pit village today, and ask where the people's ancestors came from.
▪ Horden is a former pit village, and proud of it, in East Durham.
■ VERB
close
▪ The nationalised industry announced that it is to close 31 pits, which will result in 30,000 job losses.
▪ The market says close the pits.
▪ The White Paper proposes closing just 12 pits, as opposed to the 31 originally scheduled, with a further six to be mothballed.
▪ Decisions were made to close the Rin pit late in 1983 and other closures are believed to have been planned.
▪ Even when the Government have closed the pits, their vendetta against our communities continues.
▪ It will cost a lot of money to close pits down, dismantle the sites etc.
▪ The National Coal Board wanted to close some uneconomic pits and their advice was that this could be achieved by local talks.
▪ In the short term, two of the 21 pits under the Government review - Bolsover and Sharlston - will close.
dig
▪ Some people ask how much coal will be dug or how many pits will be open by the year 2000.
▪ Elsewhere, as Wallace recorded, they dig their pits in the hot sand.
▪ To survive is to dig into the pit of your own resources over and over again.
▪ Teams of contractors dig the pits for farmers.
fall
▪ To an extent educationalists have fallen into a pit of their own making.
▪ It is easier to fall into a pit than to get out again, and the prospects in Sri Lanka are grim.
▪ Agnes thought that rules like ` Don't fall into this huge pit of spikes' were there for a purpose.
▪ He would fall into a pit, he would descend to hell.
save
▪ That cross-party committee urged a multi-million pound subsidy and other measures to save half of the pits earmarked for closure last October.
▪ But, he admitted yesterday that there were only two ways to save the pits - government subsidies or higher electricity prices.
throw
▪ Awa and Nana are accused of killing the baby either by magic, or by throwing it into a pit.
▪ So it is with the young prospects we throw into the pits of the courtroom.
▪ Then her head was struck off and fixed on gallows and her body thrown into the pit.
work
▪ There is also work at the modern pit at Kellingley or the new Snaith pit.
▪ Thousands left Swaledale to work in the pits of Durham and the mills of Lancashire.
▪ The near-vertical deposit has been drilled to 300 m depth and could be worked in an open pit.
▪ Even first-team players had odd jobs and reserves often worked shifts at the pit or elsewhere.
▪ Is not that a long enough period for miners to be working down the pit?
▪ David Park had been born and reared in New Cumnock and had worked in the pits in the area.
▪ I get tired but you get more tired working down the pit.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
make a pit stop
pit your wits against sb
▪ Jill and Oz will pit their wits against each other, as they try to identify mystery wines.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a gravel pit
▪ Eric's house is a total pit.
▪ Many of the victims were buried in large pits.
▪ There are tiny scratches and pits on the windshield.
▪ They found a large pit where all the dead bodies had been thrown.
▪ We dug a pit a yard deep in the soil.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But somebody ought to tell the filmmakers, who are churning out movies as if demand were a bottomless pit.
▪ Every military camp has a pit, where prisoners are held.
▪ It was another plastic bag of clothes from the clunch pit murder.
▪ S., methods by which operas hire pit orchestras vary.
▪ The dis-used brick pit has been a tip for 10 years and will continue as one for 30 more.
▪ The opera needs the players for its pit orchestra.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
wit
▪ Jill and Oz will pit their wits against each other, as they try to identify mystery wines.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Andretti pitted with 16 laps left.
▪ The street was pitted with potholes.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ CO2 pellets do not pit or cut the surface they are cleaning.
▪ Colors of the rainbow sparkled in the spray, the ground was less pitted and dusty.
▪ Leaders and managers who are trying to speed up the pace of change in their organizations will find themselves pitted against job-mindedness.
▪ Never in this century has the fight for the presidency pitted a congressional monarch against an incumbent president.
▪ She was still quite ready for anything the Union chose to pit a gains her.
▪ Stainless steel cutlery Can discolour and pit if left coated with food, so use the pre-wash cycle.
▪ You could also add drained, pitted canned cherries.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pit

Pit \Pit\, n. [OE. pit, put, AS. pytt a pit, hole, L. puteus a well, pit.]

  1. A large cavity or hole in the ground, either natural or artificial; a cavity in the surface of a body; an indentation; specifically:

    1. The shaft of a coal mine; a coal pit.

    2. 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.

    3. A vat sunk in the ground; as, a tan pit.

      Tumble me into some loathsome pit.
      --Shak.

  2. Any abyss; especially, the grave, or hades.

    Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained.
    --Milton.

    He keepth back his soul from the pit.
    --Job xxxiii. 18.

  3. A covered deep hole for entrapping wild beasts; a pitfall; hence, a trap; a snare. Also used figuratively.

    The anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits.
    --Lam. iv. 20.

  4. A depression or hollow in the surface of the human body; as:

    1. The hollow place under the shoulder or arm; the axilla, or armpit.

    2. See Pit of the stomach (below).

    3. The indentation or mark left by a pustule, as in smallpox.

  5. Formerly, that part of a theater, 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 theater.

  6. An inclosed area into which gamecocks, dogs, and other animals are brought to fight, or where dogs are trained to kill rats. ``As fiercely as two gamecocks in the pit.''
    --Locke.

  7. [Cf. D. pit, akin to E. pith.] (Bot.)

    1. The endocarp of a drupe, and its contained seed or seeds; a stone; as, a peach pit; a cherry pit, etc.

    2. A depression or thin spot in the wall of a duct.

      Cold pit (Hort.), an excavation in the earth, lined with masonry or boards, and covered with glass, but not artificially heated, -- used in winter for the storing and protection of half-hardly plants, and sometimes in the spring as a forcing bed.

      Pit coal, coal dug from the earth; mineral coal.

      Pit frame, the framework over the shaft of a coal mine.

      Pit head, the surface of the ground at the mouth of a pit or mine.

      Pit kiln, an oven for coking coal.

      Pit martin (Zo["o]l.), the bank swallow. [Prov. Eng.]

      Pit of the stomach (Anat.), the depression on the middle line of the epigastric region of the abdomen at the lower end of the sternum; the infrasternal depression.

      Pit saw (Mech.), a saw worked by two men, one of whom stands on the log and the other beneath it. The place of the latter is often in a pit, whence the name.

      pit stop, See pit stop in the vocabulary.

      Pit viper (Zo["o]l.), any viperine snake having a deep pit on each side of the snout. The rattlesnake and copperhead are examples.

      Working pit (Min.), a shaft in which the ore is hoisted and the workmen carried; -- in distinction from a shaft used for the pumps.

Pit

Pit \Pit\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pitted; p. pr. & vb. n. Pitting.]

  1. To place or put into a pit or hole.

    They lived like beasts, and were pitted like beasts, tumbled into the grave.
    --T. Grander.

  2. To mark with little hollows, as by various pustules; as, a face pitted by smallpox.

  3. To introduce as an antagonist; to set forward for or in a contest; as, to pit one dog against another.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
pit

"hole, cavity," Old English pytt "water hole, well; pit, grave," from Proto-Germanic *puttjaz "pool, puddle" (cognates: Old Frisian pet, Old Saxon putti, Old Norse pyttr, Middle Dutch putte, Dutch put, Old High German pfuzza, German Pfütze "pool, puddle"), early borrowing from Latin puteus "well, pit, shaft." Meaning "abode of evil spirits, hell" is attested from early 13c. Pit of the stomach (1650s) is from the slight depression there between the ribs.

pit

mid-15c., "to put into a pit," from pit (n.1); especially for purposes of fighting (of cocks, dogs, pugilists) from 1760. Figurative sense of "to set in rivalry" is from 1754. Meaning "to make pits in" is from late 15c. Related: Pitted; pitting. Compare Pit-bull as a dog breed attested from 1922, short for pit-bull terrier (by 1912). This also is the notion behind the meaning "the part of a theater on the floor of the house" (1640s).

pit

"hard seed," 1841, from Dutch pit "kernel, seed, marrow," from Middle Dutch pitte, ultimately from West Germanic *pithan-, source of pith (q.v.).

Wiktionary
pit

Etymology 1 n. 1 A hole in the ground. 2 (context motor racing English) An area at a motor racetrack used for refueling and repairing the vehicles during a race. 3 (context music English) A section of the marching band containing mallet percussion instruments and other large percussion instruments too large to march, such as the tam tam. Also, the area on the sidelines where these instruments are placed. 4 A mine. 5 (context archaeology English) 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. 6 (context trading English) A trading pit. 7 (context in the plural with ''the'' idiomatic slang English) Something particularly unpleasant. 8 The bottom part of. 9 (context colloquial English) armpit. 10 (context aviation English) A luggage hold. 11 (context countable English) A small surface hole or depression, a foss

  1. v

  2. 1 (context transitive English) To make pits in. 2 To put (a dog) into a pit for fighting. 3 (context transitive English) To bring (something) into opposition with something else. 4 (context intransitive motor racing English) To return to the pits during a race for refuelling, tyre changes, repairs et

  3. Etymology 2

    n. 1 A seed inside a fruit; a stone or pip inside a fruit. 2 A shell in a drupe containing a see

  4. vb. (context transitive English) To remove the stone from a stone fruit or the shell from a drup

Related phrases:
WordNet
pit

  1. v. set into opposition or rivalry; "let them match their best athletes against ours"; "pit a chess player against the Russian champion"; "He plays his two children off against each other" [syn: oppose, match, play off]

  2. mark with a scar; "The skin disease scarred his face permanently" [syn: scar, mark, pock]

  3. remove the pits from; "pit plums and cherries" [syn: stone]

  4. [also: pitting, pitted]

pit

  1. n. a sizeable hole (usually in the ground); "they dug a pit to bury the body" [syn: cavity]

  2. a concavity in a surface (especially an anatomical depression) [syn: fossa]

  3. the hard inner (usually woody) layer of the pericarp of some fruits (as peaches or plums or cherries or olives) that contains the seed; "you should remove the stones from prunes before cooking" [syn: stone, endocarp]

  4. a trap in the form of a concealed hole [syn: pitfall]

  5. a surface excavation for extracting stone or slate; "a British term for `quarry' is `stone pit'" [syn: quarry, stone pit]

  6. lowered area in front of a stage where an orchestra accompanies the performers [syn: orchestra pit]

  7. a workplace consisting of a coal mine plus all the buildings and equipment connected with it [syn: colliery]

  8. [also: pitting, pitted]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Pit

Pit or PIT may refer to:

Pit (game)

Pit is a fast-paced card game for three to seven players, designed to simulate open outcry bidding for commodities. The game was developed for Parker Brothers and first sold in 1904. It is currently being produced by Winning Moves. This popular version of the game was developed by Edgar Cayce, who would also become famous for his psychic predictions.

The inspirations were the Chicago Board of Trade (known as 'The Pit') and the US Corn Exchange and it was likely based on the very successful game Gavitt's Stock Exchange, invented in 1903 by Harry E. Gavitt of Topeka, Kansas (and reprinted in 2004 in an authentic "heirloom" edition by Out of the Box Publishing). Versions of the game have been marketed under the names Billionaire, Business, Cambio, Deluxe Pit, Quick 7, and Zaster.

Pit (nuclear weapon)

The pit, named after the hard core found in fruits such as peaches and apricots, is the core of an implosion nuclear weapon – the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it. Some weapons tested during the 1950s used pits made with U-235 alone, or in composite with plutonium, but all-plutonium pits are the smallest in diameter and have been the standard since the early 1960s.

Pit (Kid Icarus)

, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Kid Icarus series, first appearing in Kid Icarus for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986 and later appearing in Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters for the Game Boy in 1991. Pit is the protagonist of the 2012 video game Kid Icarus: Uprising, with director Masahiro Sakurai claiming that Pit would feel like a brand new character for Uprising, with various new weapons and abilities.

Pit has appeared in various media, as well as making various cameo appearances in many other Nintendo games. He appeared as one of the playable fighters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and returned in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U. He was also one of the recurring characters in the Captain N: The Game Master cartoon series, though in the latter he was known as Kid Icarus. Since his introduction, Pit's character has been generally well received by video game critics.

Pit (botany)

Pits are parts of plant cell walls which allow the exchange of fluids. In the case of pressure changes in the cell lumen pit aspiration can occur.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "pit".

All the obscenity and salacious infamy spawned in the muck of the abysmal pits of life seemed to drown her in seas of cosmic filth.

All the obscenity and salacious infamy spawned in the muck of the abysmal pits of Life seemed to drown her in seas of cosmic filth.

Lots and lots of pits and craters in his cheeks, from terrible acne when he was young.

A little mouth, a delicate little nose, and a face pitted and scarred by the acne of his youth.

Entering the lodge, Aganippe lay down beside the glowing stones piled in a central pit.

In the background, they could see Akers hop-skipping toward the tripod-and-wrench arrangement above the pit.

Where, a second earlier, there had been a squad of InfiniDim Enterprises executives with a rocket launcher standing on an elegant terraced plaza paved with large slabs of lustrous stone cut from the ancient alabastrum quarries of Zentalquabula there was now, instead, a bit of a pit with nasty bits in it.

Grinning fiercely and showering each other with blistering insults, they battled around the confines of the cave, leaping over the fire pit and threatening to trample Alec underfoot until he wisely retreated to the narrow crevice at the back.

Alemans were trying to drive them into the alkahest pits still bubbling from the First Sorcerous War.

A huge crack opened in the floor, and Toth and Ament dropped into the pit and disappeared.

But none of us had ever encountered, even imagined, such a power of amnesia, the possibility of a pit into which everything, every experience, every event, would fathomlessly drop, a bottomless memory-hole that would engulf the whole world.

According to both Amnesty International and the Muslim Brotherhood, groups of prisoners suspected of anti-government sentiments were taken from detention camps, machine-gunned en masse, and then dumped into pre-dug pits that were covered with earth and left unmarked.

They located two roads, neither passable by now, one track leading to a shallow pit where many tons of apatite had been removed.

Up its three steps, the bridge plunged away into an echoing, aphotic pit.

He tried to slug the apish Monk in the pit of the stomach, and the sound was much as if his knuckles had rapped a hard wall.