different between scratch vs pit

English

Etymology

From Middle English scracchen, of uncertain origin. Probably a blend of Middle English scratten (“to scratch”) and cracchen (“to scratch”). More at scrat and cratch.

Pronunciation

• enPR: skr?ch, IPA^(key): /sk?æt?/
• Rhymes: -æt?

Verb

scratch (third-person singular simple present scratches, present participle scratching, simple past and past participle scratched)

1. To rub a surface with a sharp object, especially by a living creature to remove itching with nails, claws, etc.
   • 1733, Jonathan Swift, On Poetry, a Rhapsody

     Be mindful, when invention fails, / To scratch your head, and bite your nails.

2. To rub the skin with rough material causing a sensation of irritation; to cause itching.
   1. For a man, when kissing someone, to irritate the skin of that person with one's unshaven beard.
3. To mark a surface with a sharp object, thereby leaving a scratch (noun).

4. To cross out, strike out, strike through some text on a page.
   1. Hence, to remove, ignore or delete.

5. (music) To produce a distinctive sound on a turntable by moving a vinyl record back and forth while manipulating the crossfader (see also scratching).
6. (billiards) To commit a foul in pool, as where the cue ball is put into a pocket or jumps off the table.

7. (billiards, dated, US) To score, not by skillful play but by some fortunate chance of the game.
8. To write or draw hastily or awkwardly; scrawl.
9. (transitive, intransitive) To dig or excavate with the claws.

10. To dig or scrape (a person's skin) with claws or fingernails in self-defense or with the intention to injure.

Synonyms

• scrattle

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

scratch (countable and uncountable, plural scratches)

1. A disruption, mark or shallow cut on a surface made by scratching.
   • 1677-1684, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises

     The coarse file […] makes deep scratches in the work.

   • 1709, Matthew Prior, Henry and Emma, line 503

     These nails with scratches deform my breast.
2. An act of scratching the skin to alleviate an itch or irritation.

3. (sports)
   1. A starting line (originally and simply, a line scratched in the ground), as in boxing.

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

   2. A technical error of touching or surpassing the starting mark prior to the official start signal in the sporting events of long jump, discus, hammer throw, shot put, and similar. Originally the starting mark was a scratch on the ground but is now a board or precisely indicated mark.
   3. (cycling) The last riders to depart in a handicap race.
   4. (billiards) An aberration.
      1. A foul in pool, as where the cue ball is put into a pocket or jumps off the table.
      2. (archaic, US, slang) A shot which scores by chance and not as intended by the player; a fluke.
   5. (horse racing) A horse withdrawn from a race prior to the start.

4. (slang) Money.
   • 2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho, Picador 2007, p. 153:

     He and Bruce cooked up a script together, and Bruce flew home to raise the scratch.

5. A feed, usually a mixture of a few common grains, given to chickens.
6. (in the plural) Minute, but tender and troublesome, excoriations, covered with scabs, upon the heels of horses which have been used where it is very wet or muddy.
   • 1887, James Law, The Farmer's Veterinary Adviser

     These are exemplified in the scurfy, scaly affections which appear in the bend of the knee (mallenders) and hock (sallenders) and on the lower parts of the limbs, by scratches, and by a scaly exfoliation […].

7. (now historical) A scratch wig.
   • 1775, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin 2001, 26 March:

     [H]e turned to him with a dejected Face, and said ‘ – pray Sir, – could you touch up This a little?’ taking hold of his frightful scratch.

8. (music) A genre of Virgin Islander music, better known as fungi.

Synonyms

• (Virgin Islander music): fungi, quelbe

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

scratch (not comparable)

1. For or consisting of preliminary or tentative, incomplete, etc. work.

2. Hastily assembled, arranged or constructed, from whatever materials are to hand, with little or no preparation
   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford 2004, p. 740:

     Bluecoats began crossing the James on June 14 and next day two corps approached Petersburg, which was held by Beauregard with a scratch force of 2,500.

3. (computing, from scratchpad) Relating to a data structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or temporary use.
4. (sports) (of a player) Of a standard high enough to play without a handicap, i.e. to compete without the benefit of a variation in scoring based on ability.

Derived terms

• scratch sheet

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “scratch”, in Online Etymology Dictionary
• The Jargon File - Scratch

French

Etymology

From English scratch.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sk?at?/

Noun

scratch m (plural scratchs)

1. Velcro

Synonyms

• velcro

Italian

Etymology

From English scratch.

Noun

scratch m (invariable)

1. (music) scratch

Spanish

Etymology

From English scratch.

Noun

scratch m (plural scratchs)

1. (music) scratch

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /p?t/, [p???t]
• Rhymes: -?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English pit, pet, püt, from Old English pytt, from Proto-West Germanic *puti, from Latin puteus (“trench, pit, well”).

Noun

pit (plural pits)

1. A hole in the ground.

2. (motor racing) An area at a racetrack used for refueling and repairing the vehicles during a race.

3. (music) A section of the marching band containing mallet percussion instruments and other large percussion instruments too large to march, such as the tam tam. Also, the area on the sidelines where these instruments are placed.
4. A mine.
5. (archaeology) A hole or trench in the ground, excavated according to grid coordinates, so that the provenance of any feature observed and any specimen or artifact revealed may be established by precise measurement.
6. (trading) A trading pit.
7. The bottom part of something.

8. (colloquial) Armpit.
9. (aviation) A luggage hold.
10. (countable) A small surface hole or depression, a fossa.
11. The indented mark left by a pustule, as in smallpox.
12. The grave, or underworld.
    • 1611, Bible, Job xxxiii. 18 (KJV).

      He keepeth back his soul from the pit.

13. An enclosed area into which gamecocks, dogs, and other animals are brought to fight, or where dogs are trained to kill rats.

    • as fiercely as two game-cocks in the pit

15. Formerly, that part of a theatre, on the floor of the house, below the level of the stage and behind the orchestra; now, in England, commonly the part behind the stalls; in the United States, the parquet; also, the occupants of such a part of a theatre.
16. (gambling) Part of a casino which typically holds tables for blackjack, craps, roulette, and other games.
17. (slang) A pit bull terrier.

    I'm taking one of my pits to the vet on Thursday.

18. (in the plural, with the, slang) Only used in the pits.

19. (slang) A mosh pit.

20. (law enforcement, usually used with "maneuver") A maneuver by which a police officer, by use of a police car, nudges the vehicle of a fleeing suspect enough for the suspect's vehicle to lose control and become disabled so the police officer can catch and apprehend the suspect.
21. (military) The fissile core of a nuclear weapon, commonly made of uranium or plutonium surrounded by high-explosive lenses.
22. (hospital slang) The emergency department.

Synonyms

• (pit bull terrier): pibble (informal), pit bull, pittie (informal), shitbull (pejorative), velvet hippo (slang)

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pit (third-person singular simple present pits, present participle pitting, simple past and past participle pitted)

1. (transitive) To make pits in; to mark with little hollows.

   Exposure to acid rain pitted the metal.

2. (transitive) To put (an animal) into a pit for fighting.
3. (transitive) To bring (something) into opposition with something else.

   Are you ready to pit your wits against one of the world's greatest puzzles?

   • 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games[1]

     For the 75 years since a district rebellion was put down, The Games have existed as an assertion of the Capital’s power, a winner-take-all contest that touts heroism and sacrifice—participants are called “tributes”— while pitting the districts against each other.

   • 2017 August 25, Aukkarapon Niyomyat & Panarat Thepgumpanat, "Thai junta seeks Yingluck's arrest as former PM skips court verdict", in reuters.com, Reuters

     That movement, pitted against a Bangkok-centered royalist and pro-military elite, has been at the heart of years of turmoil.

   • 2017 August 25, "Arrest threat as Yingluck Shinawatra misses verdict", in aljazeera.com, Al Jazeera

     Thaksin's ouster triggered years of upheaval and division that has pitted a poor, rural majority in the north that supports the Shinawatras against royalists, the military and their urban backers.

4. (intransitive, motor racing) To return to the pits during a race for refuelling, tyre changes, repairs etc.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Dutch pit (“kernel, core”), from Middle Dutch pitte, from Proto-Germanic *pittan (compare dialectal German Pfitze (“pimple”)), oblique of Proto-Germanic *piþ?. Compare pith.

Noun

pit (plural pits)

1. A seed inside a fruit; a stone or pip inside a fruit.
2. A shell in a drupe containing a seed.
3. The core of an implosion weapon, consisting of the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it.

Translations

Verb

pit (third-person singular simple present pits, present participle pitting, simple past and past participle pitted)

1. (transitive) To remove the stone from a stone fruit or the shell from a drupe.

Translations

Etymology 3

Shortening.

Noun

pit (plural pits)

1. (informal) A pit bull terrier.

Translations

Further reading

• pit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• ITP, PTI, TIP, TPI, tip, tpi

Cahuilla

Noun

pít

1. road, path, way

Catalan

Etymology

From Old Occitan, from Latin pectus, from Proto-Italic *pektos, from Proto-Indo-European *peg (“breast”). Compare Italian petto, Portuguese peito, Romanian piept, Spanish pecho.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?pit/
• Rhymes: -it

Noun

pit m (plural pits)

1. breast

   Synonym: mamella

2. (castells) force to support the castell, provided by the castellers in the pinya by pressing their chest onto the back of the casteller in front of them

Related terms

• apitrar
• espitregar

Further reading

• “pit” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “pit” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?p?t]

Verb

pit

1. masculine singular passive participle of pít

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?t/
• Hyphenation: pit
• Rhymes: -?t

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch pit. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Noun

pit m or f (plural pitten, diminutive pitje n)

1. A seed inside a fruit.
2. wick (of a candle, lamp or other implement)

   Synonyms: lemmet, lont, wiek

3. burner (on a stove)
4. spirit, vigour

Derived terms

• gaspit
• kaarsenpit
• lampenpit
• pittig

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English pit.

Noun

pit m (plural pits)

1. (racing) pit (refueling station and garage at a race track)

Derived terms

• pitpoes
• pitstop
• pitstraat

Anagrams

• tip

Irish

Etymology

From Old Irish pit (“pit, hollow; female pudenda”), possibly related to putte (“pit, hollow”), Latin puteus.

Noun

pit f (genitive singular pite, nominative plural piteanna)

1. (anatomy) vulva
2. shell-less crab

Declension

Derived terms

• piteog f, piteachán m, piteán m (“effeminate man, sissy”)

Related terms

• faighin (“vagina”)

Mutation

Further reading

• "pit" in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.
• Gregory Toner, Maire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Dagmar Wodtko, Maire-Luise Theuerkauf, editors (2019) , “pit, (put)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Entries containing “vulva” in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm, 1959, by Tomás de Bhaldraithe.
• Entries containing “pit” in New English-Irish Dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge.

Javanese

Etymology

From Dutch fiets (“bicycle”)

Noun

pit

1. bicycle

Lower Sorbian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?it/

Verb

pit

1. supine of pi?

Min Nan

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?it/

Noun

pit f

1. genitive plural of pita

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?t/

Verb

pit (third-person singular present pits, present participle pittin, past pit, past participle pit)

1. to put

Synonyms

• putt

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish pit (“pit, hollow; female pudenda”), possibly related to putte (“pit, hollow”), Latin puteus.

Noun

pit f (genitive singular pite, plural pitean)

1. female external genitalia, vulva
2. (vulgar) cunt, pussy

References

• “pit” in Edward Dwelly, Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan/The Illustrated [Scottish] Gaelic–English Dictionary, 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, 1911, ?ISBN.
• Gregory Toner, Maire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Dagmar Wodtko, Maire-Luise Theuerkauf, editors (2019) , “pit, (put)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Tocharian B

Noun

pit

1. gall, bile

West Flemish

Etymology

From Middle Dutch pit, variant of put, from Old Dutch *putti, from Proto-West Germanic *puti, from Latin puteus.

Noun

pit m

1. pit
2. well

Westrobothnian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [p?ì?t]

  Rhymes: -ì?t

  Homophone: Pijt

Verb

pit

1. squeak, beep

Yola

Verb

pit

1. Alternative form of pidh