
[Middle English pich, from Old English pic and from Anglo-Norman piche, both from Latin pix, pic-.]

pitch in Informal.
[Middle English pichen, probably from Old English *piccean, causative of *pīcian, to prick.]
For more information on pitch, visit Britannica.com.
The psychological property of sound characterized by highness or lowness. Pitch is one of the two major auditory attributes of simple sounds, the other being loudness.
A simple sound source, such as a tuning fork, produces an acoustic wave that approximates a perfect sinusoid, and the pitch of a sinusoid wave is almost completely determined by its frequency. Many sounds, however, are complex and contain a number of sinusoidal components. Complex sounds often appear to have a strong pitch, which is the frequency of a sinusoid that appears to match the complex sound. Hence, a tuning fork that vibrates at about 440 Hz will have a pitch very nearly equal to the note A above middle C on the piano. Loudness is determined by the amplitude of the sound vibrations. See also Loudness; Tuning fork; Wave (physics).
A sequence of different sounds having definite pitches produces a musical tune, making pitch extremely important in music. Practically all musical conventions recognize that doubling the frequency of vibration produces a particular pitch interval, known as an octave. See also Musical acoustics; Scale (music).
The human auditory system can hear frequencies in the range of 20–20,000 Hz. For frequencies between 100 and 4000 Hz, sinusoidal sounds have a clear pitch. Beyond these limits, the pitch of sound is not distinct. Sounds below 100 Hz may be described as rumbles, while those above 4000 Hz may be described as shrill and squeaky. The ability to detect changes in pitch is remarkably acute. The just-detectable change in frequency is about 0.3%for the midfrequency range. Frequency changes are best detected when the sound is loud. Weaker sounds require greater changes in frequency to be detectable. See also Audiometry; Hearing (human).
music The vibrational frequency of a note, and the fundamental frequency in reality because each instrument and voice produces a complex of frequencies (both a narrow range about the fundamental and their harmonics). The pitch can be expressed in hertz (30 to 3 000 for audible notes), but is not so expressed in a musical context.
Because of simultaneous generation of multiples of the basic frequencies, any note sounds very similar to notes of twice and half its frequency. Termed ‘harmonious’ because of its pleasant sound to the ear, this provides the reason for the repeating pattern of musical scales. The span of the repetition is the octave, extending from any note to the note twice that frequency. A similar but declining pleasantness applies to the nearby ratios of small integers, e.g. 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, 5:6, 5:8, etc. (See interval.) The octave can be subdivided accordingly, first to produce the note that has its frequency 3⁄2 that of the initial note, and so on, to produce a set of notes, a scale, of harmonious relationships. This is the ‘scale of just intonation’, in which seven notes per octave make a good set of distinct and harmonious notes, but adjacent spacings are erratic, and awkward for many instruments. The ‘well-tempered scale’ or ‘scale of equal temperament’ adopts a consistent two-sized spacing: the tone and its exact half, the semitone. Then 2 semitones and 5 tones must give the octave, i.e. effectively 12 semitones must produce a doubling. So the semitone is

| Just intonation | Equal temperament | Hz | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (1f/1 | = 1f) | 1.0 f | 261.626~ | C |
| 1.059 5~ f | 277.183~ | • | ||
| (9f/8 | = 1.125 0f) | 1.122 5~ f | 293.665~ | D |
| 1.189 2~ f | 311.127~ | • | ||
| (5f/4 | = 1.250 0 f) | 1.259 9~ f | 329.628~ | E |
| (4f/3 | = 1.333 3~ f) | 1.334 8~ f | 349.228~ | F |
| 1.414 2~ f | 369.994~ | • | ||
| (3f/2 | = 1.500 0 f) | 1.498 3~ f | 391.995~ | G |
| 1.587 4~ f | 415.305~ | • | ||
| (5f/3 | = 1.666 7~ f) | 1.661 8~ f | 440. | A |
| 1.781 8~ f | 446.164~ | • | ||
| (15f/8 | = 1.875 0 f) | 1.887 7~ f | 493.883~ | B |
| (2f/1 | = 2f) | 2.0 f | 523.251~ | C |
The number of printed characters per inch. With proportionally spaced characters, the pitch is variable and must be measured as an average. See dot pitch and pitch-yaw-roll.
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1. Presentation by one or more persons from an advertising agency to a prospective account. In this presentation, the agency will use a portfolio, slides, video, story board or other devices to review its organizational setup, results for other clients, types of accounts, experience of personnel, specializations, extra fee charges, and any other information that is pertinent to winning the account. If the presentation is a speculative pitch, the agency will submit actual sample campaigns that include copy and layout to the prospective client. Since a speculative pitch is backed by an agency's research, art, typography, and other out-of-pocket expenses, it usually involves considerable expense. The industry generally objects to speculative pitches because it is felt that the speculative campaign is rarely based on a thorough knowledge of company policy, objectives, or competitive advantages.
2. Presentation, sometimes high-pressure, to a prospect by a salesperson, to solicit an order or new business. In making a sales pitch to a prospective client, a salesperson usually begins with a positive opening line, demonstrates the features of the product while concentrating on selling its benefits, handles objections with a positive approach, and ends by asking for the order.
| Piracy, Pipeline, Pink Sheets | |
| Piti, Pivot Table, Pixel |
| Pipeline, Piggybacking (credit score) | |
| Plaintiff, Planned Unit Development (PUD) |
verb
phrasal verb - pitch into
noun
Idioms beginning with pitch:
pitcher
pitched battle, a
pitch into
pitch on
See also black as night (pitch); in there pitching; make a pitch for; sales pitch; wild pitch.
n. a swaying or oscillation of a ship, aircraft, or vehicle around a horizontal axis perpendicular to the direction of motion.
v.1. (of a moving ship, aircraft, or vehicle) rock or oscillate around a lateral axis, so that the front and back move up and down: the little steamer pressed on, pitching gently.
2. (of a vehicle) move with a vigorous jogging motion: a jeep came pitching down the hill.
pitch in join in a fight or dispute.
pitch into forcefully assault.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
The quality of a sound that fixes its position in the scale. Sounds produced by such instruments as a cymbal or a bass drum are said to be of indefinite pitch. Pitch is determined by what the ear perceives as the most fundamental wave-frequency of a sound.
In normal concert usage today, a standard pitch is used, defined as a′ = 440 cycles per second (or Hz). There has not always been a standard pitch. The oldest extant instructions for tuning a harpsichord suggest that one fixes the initial note as one wishes; and as recently as the early 19th century, woodwind instruments were commonly equipped with interchangeable joints to accommodate different pitch levels. Evidence from between c 1500 and c 1800, usually in the form of surviving organs, pitch pipes or tuning forks, or from written sources, shows a variation in pitch for a′ between modern f′#; and c″. The pitch for opera performances in Paris in Lully's time (c 1675) was a′ = c 410; this was also the low chamber pitch (‘Cammer-Ton’) of J.S. Bach. Bach's organ pitch (‘Chor-Ton’) at Leipzig and Weimar, however, was a′ = c 480. Pitch levels between c 415 and c 430 were much used: a tuning fork associated with Handel gives a′ = 422. 5, and this is the approximate pitch of French orchestras c 1700 and the ‘high chamber pitch’ of J.S. Bach. This is the pitch, too, used by the Philharmonic Society of London in 1813. In Vienna, pitch was then a′ = 435. It rose during the 19th century as the pressures during increasing public performance, in larger halls, led to a striving for more brilliant effect. In the 1850s, it stood at 449 at the Paris Opéra and 451 at La Scala, Milan. The rise gave particular concern to singers as the higher pitch increasingly strained their voices. A standard of a′ = 435 was established in France in 1859.
The present standard of a′ = 440 was laid down by the International Organization for Standardisation in 1955. Most performers on period instruments use a lower pitch, generally c 430 for music of the Classical period and 415 for Baroque music.
1. The slope of a roof, usually expressed as a ratio of vertical rise to horizontal run, or in inches (centimeters) of rise per foot (meter) of run.
2. See grade.
3. The slope of a stair flight, i.e., the ratio of the rise to the run of the flight.
4. The distance between centers of bolts, rivets, and other fasteners in the same line.
5. See carpet pitch.
6. In acoustics, that attribute of auditory sensation in which sounds may be ordered on a scale from low to high; depends primarily on the frequency of the sound stimulus.
7. Any of various resins.
8. A dark, viscous, distillate of tar; used in caulking and paving; also called pitch mastic. Also See coal-tar pitch.
9. In masonry, to square a stone with a chisel.
(DOD, NATO) 1. The movement of an aircraft or ship about its transverse axis. 2. In air photography, the camera rotation about the transverse axis of the aircraft. Also called tip.
When his teammate got hurt, he had to pitch for the rest of the game.
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1. a dark, more or less viscous residue from distillation of tar and other substances.
2. natural asphalt of various kinds.
3. the quality of sound dependent on the frequency of vibration of the waves producing it

Pitch is the name for any of a number of viscoelastic, solid polymers. Pitch can be made from petroleum products or plants. Petroleum-derived pitch is also called bitumen. Pitch produced from plants is also known as resin. Products made from plant resin are also known as rosin.
Pitch was traditionally used to help caulk the seams of wooden sailing vessels (see shipbuilding). Pitch was also used to waterproof wooden containers, and is sometimes still used in the making of torches. Petroleum-derived pitch is black in colour, hence the adjectival phrase, "pitch-black".
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Tar pitch is a viscoelastic polymer. This means that even though it seems to be solid at room temperature and can be shattered with a hard impact, it is actually fluid and will flow over time, but extremely slowly. The pitch drop experiment taking place at University of Queensland is a long-term experiment which measures the flow of a piece of pitch over many years. For the experiment, pitch was put in a glass funnel and allowed to slowly drip out. Since the pitch was allowed to start dripping in 1930, only eight drops have fallen. It was calculated in the 1980s that the pitch in the experiment has a viscosity approximately 230 billion (2.3×1011) times that of water.[1]
The heating (dry distilling) of wood causes tar and pitch to drip away from the wood and leave behind charcoal. Birchbark is used to make a particularly fine tar. The terms tar and pitch are often used interchangeably. However, pitch is considered more solid while tar is more liquid. Traditionally, pitch that was used for waterproofing buckets, barrels and small boats was drawn from pine. It is used to make Cutler's resin.
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Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - harpiks
v. tr. - dække med harpiks
idioms:
2.
n. - højde, trin, højdepunkt, stemmeleje
v. tr. - stille op, anbringe, smide, brolægge, kaste
v. intr. - slå lejr, styrte, skråne, duve, stampe
idioms:
Nederlands (Dutch)
opslaan (tent), werpen, (woordkeuze) richten op bepaald niveau, bevestigen, bal naar slagman werpen (honkbal), op bepaalde toonhoogte stemmen, afhellen (dak etc.), heen en weer schokken, stampen (schip), voorover vallen, bal een bepaalde afstand gooien (cricket), (verhaal/grap) vertellen, bestraten, pek, worp, sportveld, (toon) hoogte, helling, het stampen (schip), verkooppraatje, vaste stek (verkoper), afstand tussen twee punten (op schroef/tandwiel etc.)
Français (French)
1.
n. - goudron
v. tr. - tacher de goudron, goudronner
idioms:
2.
n. - (Sport) terrain, (gén, Phon) hauteur, (Mus) ton, degré, comble, (gén, Comm) boniment, (Constr, Naut) brai, (GB) emplacement, (Naut) tangage, (Sport) lancement, (Constr) pente, longueur (de corde)
v. tr. - jeter, balancer, (Sport) lancer, (Agric) jeter avec une fourche, adapter (à), fixer (prix), (Mus) trouver (la note), donner (la note), planter (une tente), sortir/débiter (une excuse)
v. intr. - (gén) être projeté, (Naut) tanguer, (US) lancer (la balle) (au base-ball), (GB, Sport) rebondir (balle)
idioms:
Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Pech
v. - verpechen
idioms:
2.
n. - Stand, Tonhöhe, Steigung, Neigung, Wurf
v. - werfen, aufschlagen, anstimmen
idioms:
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - κατράμι, πίσσα, γήπεδο αθλοπαιδιών, βολή, ρίψη, εκσφενδόνιση, (οικοδ.) κλίση, γωνία, λοξότητα, βαθμός, σκαμπανέβασμα, βαθμός εντάσεως, ύψος, τόνος φωνής ή ήχου, διαπασών, (Βρετ.) στέκι, πόστο μικροπωλητή, (μηχαν.) "βήμα" (γραναζιού, έλικας κ.λπ.), πιάτσα παράνομης δραστηριότητας ή πόρνης, (τυπογρ.) βήμα, πλάτος χαρακτήρα
v. - εξακοντίζω, ρίχνω, πετώ, πέφτω, στήνω (σκηνή), μπήγω, δίνω ορισμένο τόνο, σκαμπανεβάζω, ρυθμίζω το βαθμό ή το επίπεδο
idioms:
Italiano (Italian)
gettare, pece, lancio, campo sportivo
idioms:
Português (Portuguese)
n. - tom (m) (Mús.), som (m), nota (f) (Mús.), piche (m), arremesso (m), campo desportivo (m)
v. - afinar (Mús.), montar, lançar, jogar, acampar, inclinar-se
idioms:
Русский (Russian)
швырять, настойчиво предлагать, смола, качка, бросок, постоянное место, часть крикетного поля
idioms:
Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - pez, brea, resina, alquitrán
v. tr. - untar o cubrir con alquitrán o brea
idioms:
2.
n. - echada, lanzamiento, tiro, puesto, campo
v. tr. - lanzar, arrojar, echar, tirar, armar, montar
v. intr. - lanzar, arrojar, echar, tirar, armar, montar
idioms:
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - grad, topp, tonläge, tonhöjd, kast, bollplan, torgplats, (fartygs) stampning, lutning, kuggdelning (mek.), försäljningsargument
v. - kasta, slunga, sätta upp, (sten)sätta, stämma (mus.), bestämma trumf, stampa (om fartyg), kränga, falla, störta
中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
1. 沥青, 树脂, 松脂, 用沥青涂
idioms:
2. 搭, 把...定得, 把...定在, 扎, 为...定音高, 搭帐篷, 投掷, 安营, 向前跌, 投, 音高, 投球, 程度
中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
1.
n. - 瀝青, 樹脂, 松脂
v. tr. - 用瀝青塗
idioms:
2.
v. tr. - 搭, 把...定得, 把...定在, 紮, 為...定音高
v. intr. - 搭帳篷, 投擲, 安營, 向前跌
n. - 投, 音高, 投球, 程度
한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 송진, 수지
v. tr. - 송진을 칠하다
2.
n. - 던지기, 고정 위치, 정점
v. tr. - 던지다, 처박다, 조정하다
v. intr. - 거꾸로 떨어지다, 앞뒤로 흔들리다
idioms:
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 投げること, 投球, 高低, 縦揺れ, 程度, 口上, こう配, ピッチ, 松やに, 傾斜
v. - 投げる, 投球する, 張る, 落ちる, 倒れる, 調子を決める, 高さを決める, 傾斜させる, 縦に揺れる, ピッチを塗る
idioms:
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) زفت, قار, قير, درجه الميل أو الانحدار, مص, الخطوة, منحدر, درجه النغم, المسافه بين شيئين في ماكنه (فعل) يطلي أو يعالج بالزفت, ينصب, يحط, يغوص, يقذف, يختار, يقرر شيئا
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - זפת
v. tr. - מרח או ציפה בזפת
n. - דרגה, רמה, גובה-צליל, מקום העסקים, זריקה, הטלה, מגרש, טלטול הספינה, עוצמה, שיפוע
v. tr. - הקים, הציב, הטיל, זרק, קבע (גובה-צליל), שיפע, סיפר, ריצף דרך באבנים, ביטא בסגנון מסוים
v. intr. - נפל, ניטלטל, השתפע
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