Pitched

How to spell pitched

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pitched

What does pitched mean?

1. verbPast tense of pitch: threw something, set up a tent or camp, or formally presented a proposal.
2. adjectiveSet or built at a particular slope or angle, especially a roof.
3. adjectiveDescribing a fiercely fought, full-scale conflict, as in a pitched battle.

Pitched in a sentence

• verb

  The young player pitched the ball straight down the middle.

• adjective

  The steeply pitched roof let the heavy snow slide off easily.

• adjective

  The two armies fought a pitched battle across the open field.

• verb

  They pitched the tent beside the lake before the rain started.

• adjective

  The loft conversion kept the original pitched ceiling.

• adjective

  The council meeting turned into a pitched argument over the budget.

Where does pitched come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb pitch comes from the Middle English picchen, meaning to thrust, drive in, or fasten firmly, a word of somewhat obscure origin that may be related to the verb 'pick' in the sense of striking or piercing. From the early idea of driving a stake into the ground, the word branched out: you could pitch a tent by fixing its pegs, pitch a ball by throwing it, and pitch a roof by setting it at a fixed slope. A separate noun pitch, meaning the dark sticky tar from Latin pix, is unrelated despite the identical spelling. The musical and persuasive senses (a high pitch, a sales pitch) grew later from the idea of where something is 'set' or fixed. The -ed ending is the regular past form, and because the root ends in the 'tch' cluster, the spelling stays neatly as pitched.

How the word is built

• pitch (to throw, set, or fix)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)