Pitcher

How to spell pitcher

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pitcher

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pitcher mean?

1. nounA container with a handle and a spout, used for holding and pouring liquids.
2. nounIn baseball, the player who throws the ball toward the batter.

Pitcher in a sentence

• She filled the pitcher with iced water before the guests arrived.

• The team's star pitcher struck out three batters in a row.

• A ceramic pitcher of lemonade sat in the middle of the table.

• The coach replaced the tired pitcher in the seventh inning.

Where does pitcher come from?

Language of origin: French

The container sense of pitcher came into English in the 1300s from the Old French word pichier, meaning a large jug or earthenware pot. That word goes back to Medieval Latin picarium or bicarium, a drinking vessel, which is also a distant relative of our word 'beaker'. Over time the spelling drifted and an extra letter crept in, giving the modern English form with its tell-tale 'tch'. The quite separate baseball sense was built much later inside English itself, from the verb 'to pitch' (to throw or fling) plus the agent ending -er, so a pitcher is literally 'one who throws'. The two meanings now look identical on the page even though they arrived by very different routes, and the word is most often misspelled because it sounds almost exactly like 'picture'.

How the word is built

• pitch- (from Old French pichier, a jug or pot)
• -er (agent/noun suffix); the baseball sense is pitch (to throw)
• -er (one who does)