Pitch

Pitch - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(Gen. 6:14), asphalt or bitumen in its soft state, called "slime" (Gen. 11:3; 14:10; Ex. 2:3), found in pits near the Dead Sea (q.v.). It was used for various purposes, as the coating of the outside of vessels and in building. Allusion is made in Isa. 34:9 to its inflammable character. (See [492]SLIME.)

Pitch - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

PITCH, n. [L. pix; Gr. most probably named from its thickness or inspissation; L. figo.]

1. A thick tenacious substance,the juice of a species of pine or fir called abies picea, obtained by incision from the bark of the tree. When melted and pressed in bags of cloth, it is received into barrels. This is white or Burgundy pitch; by mixture with lampblack it is converted into black pitch. When kept long in fusion with vinegar, it becomes dry and brown, and forms colophony. The smoke of pitch condensed forms lampblack.

2. The resin of pine, or turpentine, inspissated; used in caulking ships and paying the sides and bottom.

PITCH, n. [from the root of pike, peak.]

1. Literally, a point; hence, any point or degree of elevation; as a high pitch; lowest pitch.

How high a pitch his resolution soars.

Alcibiades was one of the best orators of his age, notwithstanding he lived when learning was at its highest pitch.

2. Highest rise.

3. Size; stature.

So like in person, garb and pitch.

4. Degree; rate.

No pitch of glory from the grave is free.

5. The point where a declivity begins, or the declivity itself; descent; slope; as the pitch of a hill.

6. The degree of descent or declivity.

7. A descent; a fall; a thrusting down.

8. Degree of elevation of the key-note of a tune or of any note.

PITCH, v.t. [L. figo, to fix, and uniting pike, pique with fix.]

1. To throw or thrust, and primarily, to thrust a long or pointed object; hence, to fix; to plant; to set; as, to pitch a tent or pavilion, that is, to set the stakes.

2. To throw at a point; as, to pitch quoits.

3. To throw headlong; as, to pitch one in the mire or down a precipice.

4. To throw with a fork; as, to pitch hay or sheaves of corn.

5. To regulate or set the key-note of a tune in music.

6. To set in array; to marshal or arrange in order; used chiefly in the participle; as a pitched battle.

7. [from pitch.] To smear or pay over with pitch; as, to pitch the seams of a ship.

PITCH, v.i. To light; to settle; to come to rest from flight.

Take a branch of the tree on which the bees pitch, and wipe the hive.

1. To fall headlong; as, to pitch from a precipice; to pitch on the head.

2. To plunge; as, to pitch into a river.

3. To fall; to fix choice; with on or upon.

Pitch upon the best course of life, and custom will render it the most easy.

4. To fix a tent or temporary habitation; to encamp.

Laban with his brethren pitched in the mount of Gilead. Gen 31.

5. In navigation, to rise and fall, as the head and stern of a ship passing over waves.

6. To flow or fall precipitously, as a river.

Over this rock, the river pitches in one entire sheet.

pich: The translation of the noun kopher, and the verb kaphar, in Ge 6:14 and of the noun zepheth, in Ex 2:3; Isa 34:9. In Ge 6:14 the words are the ordinary forms for "covering," "cover," so that the translation "pitch" is largely guesswork, aided by the Septuagint, which reads asphaltos, "bitumen," here, and by the fact that pitch is a usual "covering" for vessels. The meaning of zepheth, however, is fixed by the obvious Dead Sea imagery of Isa 34:9-15--the streams and land of Edom are to become burning bitumen, like the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Ex 2:3 zepheth is combined with chemar, which also means bitumen (Ge 14:10; see SLIME), and the distinction between the words (different consistencies of the same substance?) is not clear.

Burton Scott Easton