different between cant vs pitch

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: k?nt, IPA^(key): /kænt/
• Rhymes: -ænt
• Homophone: can't (US), Homophone: Kant (in anglicized pronunciation)

Etymology 1

From Latin cant? probably via Old Northern French canter (“sing, tell”). Doublet of chant.

Noun

cant (usually uncountable, plural cants)

1. (countable) An argot, the jargon of a particular class or subgroup.

   Synonyms: argot, jargon, slang

   • 1836, Three discourses preached before the Congregational Society in Watertown, page 65

2. (countable, uncountable) A private or secret language used by a religious sect, gang, or other group.

   Synonyms: argot, jargon, slang

3. A language spoken by some Irish Travellers; Shelta.
4. (uncountable, derogatory) Empty, hypocritical talk.
   • 1903, Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, ch 46:

     ... he knew very well that if they thought him clever they were being taken in, but it pleased him to have been able to take them in, and he tried to do so still further; he was therefore a good deal on the look-out for cants that he could catch and apply in season, and might have done himself some mischief thus if he had not been ready to throw over any cant as soon as he had come across another more nearly to his fancy ...

5. (uncountable) Whining speech, such as that used by beggars.
6. (countable, heraldry) A blazon of a coat of arms that makes a pun upon the name (or, less often, some attribute or function) of the bearer, canting arms.
7. (obsolete) A call for bidders at a public fair; an auction.

Related terms

Translations

Verb

cant (third-person singular simple present cants, present participle canting, simple past and past participle canted)

1. (intransitive) To speak with the jargon of a class or subgroup.
2. (intransitive) To speak in set phrases.
3. (intransitive) To preach in a singsong fashion, especially in a false or empty manner.
4. (intransitive, heraldry) Of a blazon, to make a pun that references the bearer of a coat of arms.
5. (obsolete) To sell by auction, or bid at an auction.

See also

• jargon
• sociolect

Etymology 2

From Middle English cant (“edge, brink”), from Middle Dutch cant (“point, side, edge”) (Modern Dutch kant (“side, edge”)), ultimately of Celtic or Latin origin. Related to Medieval Latin cantus (“corner, side”), from Latin canthus.

Noun

cant (plural cants)

1. (obsolete) Side, edge, corner, niche.
2. Slope, the angle at which something is set.
3. A corner (of a building).

   Synonym: corner

4. An outer or external angle.
5. An inclination from a horizontal or vertical line; a slope or bevel; a tilt.

   Synonyms: bevel, slope, tilt

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Totten to this entry?)

6. A movement or throw that overturns something.
   • 1830, The Edinburgh Encyclopedia, volume 3, page 621

     It is not only of great service in keeping the boat in her due position on the sea, but also in creating a tendency immediately to recover from any sudden cant, or lurch, from a heavy wave; and it is besides beneficial in diminishing the violence of beating against the sides of the vessel which she may go to relieve.

7. A sudden thrust, push, kick, or other impulse, producing a bias or change of direction; also, the bias or turn so given.

8. (coopering) A segment forming a side piece in the head of a cask.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

9. A segment of the rim of a wooden cogwheel.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

10. (nautical) A piece of wood laid upon the deck of a vessel to support the bulkheads.

Derived terms

• cantrail

Related terms

• cantilever

Translations

Verb

cant (third-person singular simple present cants, present participle canting, simple past and past participle canted)

1. (transitive) To set (something) at an angle.

   to cant a cask; to cant a ship

2. (transitive) To give a sudden turn or new direction to.

   to cant round a stick of timber; to cant a football

3. (transitive) To bevel an edge or corner.
4. (transitive) To overturn so that the contents are emptied.

Translations

Etymology 3

Unknown, but compare Provençal cantel (“corner, piece”) or Old Northern French cantel (“piece broken off”). The verb is attested from the 15th century, and the noun from the 16th.

Verb

cant (third-person singular simple present cants, present participle canting, simple past and past participle canted)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To divide or parcel out.

Noun

cant (plural cants)

1. (regional, forestry) A parcel, a division.

Etymology 4

From Middle English cant, kaunt, presumably from Middle Low German *kant. Compare Dutch kant (“neat, clever”). Attested from the 13th or 14th century.

Alternative forms

• kant

Adjective

cant (not comparable)

1. (Britain, dialect) Lively, lusty.

References

Further reading

• Cant (language) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• NCTA, T-Can

Catalan

Etymology

From Old Occitan cant, from Latin cantus.

Noun

cant m (plural cants)

1. song

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?kant/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /?kan/

Synonyms

• cançó

Related terms

• cantar

Italian

Noun

cant m (invariable)

1. Apocopic form of canto

Middle English

Etymology

Possibly from Middle Low German *kant.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kant/

Adjective

cant

1. (Scotland, Northern England) bold, lively, cant
   • c. 1340, Cursor Mundi, Cotton Vespasian A iii, lines 8943-46:

     Iuus þat war sa cant and kene, / Quen þai had þis meracles sene, / þai drou it þen and mad a brig / Ouer a litel burn to lig

     Jews who were so bold and ready, when they had seen this miracle, pulled it out and made a bridge over a little stream to lie

Descendants

• English: cant (dialectal)
• Scots: cant

Romanian

Etymology

From German Kante.

Noun

cant n (plural canturi)

1. edge

Declension

Scots

Alternative forms

• kant

Etymology

From Middle English cant (“bold, lively”)

Adjective

cant

1. (Middle Scots) lively
   • 1513, Gavin Douglas (translator), Virgil (author), Aeneid:

     The cadgyar callis furth his capill with crakkis wail cant

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kant/

Etymology 1

From Proto-Brythonic *kant, from Proto-Celtic *kantom, from Proto-Indo-European *?m?tóm.

Numeral

cant (ordinal canfed)

1. one hundred

Usage notes

• Preceding a noun, cant takes the form can.
• Cardinals following cant employ a (“and”) as a connecting word, which stands in contrast to ordinals after canfed, which use wedi'r (“past the, after the”), e.g. cant ac un (“one hundred and one”) but cyntaf wedi'r cant (“hundred-and-first”).

Derived terms

• hanner cant (“fifty”)
• cant a hanner (“one hundred and fifty”)
• dau gant (“two hundred”)
• tri chant (“three hundred”)
• pum cant (“five hundred”)

Noun

cant m (plural cannoedd)

1. hundred
2. century

Etymology 2

Middle Welsh, from Proto-Celtic *kantos (“corner, rim”). Related to Breton kant (“circle”), Old Irish cétad (“round seat”).

Noun

cant m (plural cantau)

1. hoop
2. rim

Mutation

References

• Definition from the BBC
• Hoops, Johannes (1973): Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, Volume 16, p. 445

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Etymology 1

From Middle English picche, piche, pich, from Old English pi?, from Latin pix. Cognate with Dutch pek, German Pech, and Spanish pegar (“to stick, glue”).

Noun

pitch (countable and uncountable, plural pitches)

1. A sticky, gummy substance secreted by trees; sap.

2. A dark, extremely viscous material remaining in still after distilling crude oil and tar.

3. (geology) Pitchstone.

Derived terms

• pitch-black
• pitchblende
• pitch-dark
• pitch darkness
• pitch-tar

Translations

Descendants

• ? Galician: piche
• ? Portuguese: piche

See also

• piceous

Verb

pitch (third-person singular simple present pitches, present participle pitching, simple past and past participle pitched)

1. To cover or smear with pitch.

   • “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.”

2. To darken; to blacken; to obscure.
   • 1704 (published), year written unknown, John Dryden, On the Death of Amyntas

     Soon he found / The welkin pitch'd with sullen clouds.

Etymology 2

From Middle English picchen, pycchen (“to thrust in, fasten, settle”), an assibilated variant of Middle English picken, pikken (“to pick, pierce”). More at pick.

Noun

pitch (plural pitches)

1. A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand.

3. (baseball) The act of pitching a baseball.

4. (sports, Britain, Australia, New Zealand) The field on which cricket, soccer, rugby or field hockey is played. (In cricket, the pitch is in the centre of the field; see cricket pitch.) Not used in America, where "field" is the preferred word.

5. An effort to sell or promote something.

6. The distance between evenly spaced objects, e.g. the teeth of a saw or gear, the turns of a screw thread, the centres of holes, or letters in a monospace font.

   A helical scan with a pitch of zero is equivalent to constant z-axis scanning.

7. The angle at which an object sits.

8. A level or degree, or (by extension), a peak or highest degree.
   • September 28, 1710, Joseph Addison, Whig-Examiner No. 2

     He lived at a time when learning was at its highest pitch.

   • 1748, David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral, Oxford University Press (1973), section 11:

     But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity

   • 2014, James Booth, Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love (page 190)

     In this poem his 'vernacular' bluster and garish misrhymes build to a pitch of rowdy anarchy […]

9. The rotation angle about the transverse axis.
   1. (nautical, aviation) The degree to which a vehicle, especially a ship or aircraft, rotates on such an axis, tilting its bow or nose up or down. Compare with roll, yaw, and heave.

   2. (aviation) A measure of the angle of attack of a propeller.

10. An area in a market (or similar) allocated to a particular trader.
11. (by extension) The place where a busker performs, a prostitute solicits clients, or an illegal gambling game etc. is set up before the public.
    • 1975, Tom A. Cullen, The Prostitutes' Padre (page 94)

      Another reason is that the prostitute who makes her pitch at Marble Arch stands a chance of being picked up by an out-of-town business man stopping at one of the hotels in the vicinity, and of being treated to a steak dinner […]

12. An area on a campsite intended for occupation by a single tent, caravan or similar.
13. A point or peak; the extreme point of elevation or depression.
14. Prominence; importance.
15. (climbing) A section of a climb or rock face; specifically, the climbing distance between belays or stances.
    • 1967, Anthony Greenbank, Instructions in Mountaineering (page 84)

      You lead "through" instead — your companion leads a pitch, then you join him. But instead of swapping over at the ice axe belay, you carry on in the lead, cutting or kicking steps until you are about twenty feet above.

16. (caving) A vertical cave passage, only negotiable by using rope or ladders.

17. (now Britain, regional) A person's or animal's height.
18. (cricket) That point of the ground on which the ball pitches or lights when bowled.
19. A descent; a fall; a thrusting down.
20. The point where a declivity begins; hence, the declivity itself; a descending slope; the degree or rate of descent or slope; slant.

21. (mining) The limit of ground set to a miner who receives a share of the ore taken out.

Hyponyms

• football pitch

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pitch (third-person singular simple present pitches, present participle pitching, simple past and past participle pitched or (obsolete) pight)

2. (transitive) To throw.

4. (transitive or intransitive, baseball) To throw (the ball) toward a batter at home plate.

5. (intransitive, baseball) To play baseball in the position of pitcher.

6. (transitive) To throw away; discard.

7. (transitive) To promote, advertise, or attempt to sell.

8. (transitive) To deliver in a certain tone or style, or with a certain audience in mind.

9. (transitive) To assemble or erect (a tent).

10. (intransitive) To fix or place a tent or temporary habitation; to encamp.

    • Laban with his brethren pitched in the Mount of Gilead.

11. (transitive, intransitive, aviation or nautical) To move so that the front of an aircraft or boat goes alternatively up and down.

12. (transitive, golf) To play a short, high, lofty shot that lands with backspin.

13. (intransitive, cricket) To bounce on the playing surface.

14. (intransitive, Bristol, of snow) To settle and build up, without melting.
15. (intransitive, archaic) To alight; to settle; to come to rest from flight.

    • the tree whereon they [the bees] pitch

16. (with on or upon) To fix one's choice.
    • a. 1694, John Tillotson, The Precepts of Christianity not grievous

      Pitch upon the best course of life, and custom will render it the more easy.
17. (intransitive) To plunge or fall; especially, to fall forward; to decline or slope.

18. (transitive, of an embankment, roadway) To set, face, or pave with rubble or undressed stones.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

19. (transitive, of a price, value) To set or fix.
20. (transitive, card games, slang, of a card) To discard for some gain.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 3

Unknown. Perhaps related to the above sense of level or degree, or influenced by it.

Noun

pitch (plural pitches)

1. (music, phonetics) The perceived frequency of a sound or note.

   The pitch of middle "C" is familiar to many musicians.

2. (music) In an a cappella group, the singer responsible for singing a note for the other members to tune themselves by.

   Bob, our pitch, let out a clear middle "C" and our conductor gave the signal to start.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pitch (third-person singular simple present pitches, present participle pitching, simple past and past participle pitched)

1. (intransitive) To produce a note of a given pitch.

   • […] now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher.

2. (transitive) To fix or set the tone of.
   • 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, pages 196–197:

     His "hello" was enough to recognize his voice by. I pitched mine low so he wouldn't know it.

Translations

References

• pitch in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• pitch on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Pronunciation

Noun

pitch m (plural pitchs)

1. pitch (sales patter, inclination)

Italian

Noun

pitch m (plural pitch)

1. (cricket) cricket pitch