pitch

A pitch is the marked ground a game is played on — white lines, a goal at each end, a bare brown patch where the goalkeepers stand. Rain all week and the pitch turns to mud; the referee walks out before kick-off, looks at it, and calls the match off.

That is the British word for it. Americans say field, and keep pitch for the throw itself, the ball leaving the pitcher's hand. Pitch is also how high or low a sound is: a singer holds the pitch, a violin drifts out of pitch, and the black keys on a piano are sharps and flats because they sit between pitches. At work it is the short prepared case you make for something you want — you pitch an idea to a client and you get four minutes. You pitch a tent too, driving the pegs in. And in pitch-black the word is the oldest of the lot, because pitch was the tar boiled out of pine, and nothing is blacker than that.

Phrases it lives in

• pitch-black — completely dark, with no light at all
• at fever pitch — as excited or intense as it can get
• pitch in — join in and take a share of the work

Also practised as

• nounHow high or low a note sounds.
• verbTo put a tent up.
• verbTo throw a ball to a batter.
• nounThe short case made for buying something.