Pitching

How to spell pitching

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pitching

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pitching mean?

1. verbThrowing or tossing something, especially a ball in a game.
2. verbPromoting or proposing an idea, product, or plan to win support.
3. verbSetting up and securing a tent or temporary shelter.
4. verbPlunging up and down at the front and back, as a boat or aircraft does in rough conditions.

Pitching in a sentence

• He spent the afternoon pitching the ball to his daughter in the yard.

• She spent the morning pitching her startup to a panel of investors.

• They were busy pitching the tent before the rain arrived.

• The ferry was pitching violently in the heavy swell.

• The coach praised her for pitching with such accuracy during the match.

• The agency is pitching a new advertising campaign to the client.

Where does pitching come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of the verb 'pitch', which comes from the Middle English 'picchen', meaning 'to thrust in, fasten, or fix in place'. The earliest sense was physical: driving a stake into the ground or planting something firmly, which is why we still speak of pitching a tent today. From that idea of a forceful thrust the meaning widened to 'to throw or toss', giving us the sporting sense of hurling a ball, and later the figurative sense of 'pitching' an idea or product by throwing it out for consideration. The nautical sense, the plunging up-and-down motion of a vessel, grew from the same notion of being thrown forward. The verb is not related to the unrelated noun 'pitch' meaning the dark tar-like substance, which descends instead from the Latin 'pix'; the two simply collided in spelling, and the doubled sounds plus the plain '-ing' ending keep 'pitching' a fairly safe word to write.

How the word is built

• pitch (to throw, thrust, or set)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)