Other forms: pitchers
A pitcher is the tall container with a handle and a lip for pouring — you fill it with water, juice or iced tea and set it in the middle of the table. Americans say pitcher; the British say jug for the same object.
In baseball, a pitcher is the player who stands on the mound and throws the ball to the batter, and it is the position everyone argues about. A pitcher of beer is a shared jugful poured out into glasses at a bar. There is a plant named after the shape too: a pitcher plant, whose leaves form deep cups that drown insects. Between the two Englishes, pitcher and jug cover the same ground, with the pitcher being the taller one with a spout. One last thing: pitcher is not picture — the two sound close and get typed for each other all the time.
1nounpitcherA large container with a handle and a lip, used for pouring drinks.
“She refilled the pitcher with water and slices of lemon.”
Patterna pitcher of + noun (water, beer, lemonade) · pour from a pitcher · a glass / plastic pitcher
2nounbaseballIn baseball, the player who throws the ball to the batter.
“The pitcher stared in at the catcher for a long moment.”
3nounamountThe amount that such a container holds.
“They ordered a pitcher for the table and four glasses.”
pitcher is a container.
Also accepted in games: jug
PITCHER → the one that pours, not the one that throws
In baseball the pitcher throws the ball; at the table the pitcher pours the water: a big container with a handle and a lip.
The etymology on record here is the transparent one: pitch plus -er, the ending that names the doer, as in baker and teacher. That gives baseball's pitcher, the one who pitches the ball. The jug on the table is a separate word that entered English by another route; the two only look like twins.
Proto-Indo-European
*peyH-
Latin
pix
Proto-West Germanic
*pik
Old English
piċ
Middle English
picche
English
pitch
English, today
pitcher
From pitch + -er. pitch comes from Middle English picche, piche, pich, from Old English piċ, from Proto-West Germanic pik, from Latin pix. Cognate with Ancient Greek πίσσα (“pitch, tar”), Latin pīnus (“pine”). More at pine. Cognate with stq Pik (“pitch, tar”), Dutch pek (“pitch, tar”), German Low German Pick (“pitch, tar”), German Pech (“pitch, tar”), Catalan pega (“pitch”), Spanish pegar (“to stick, glue”), frp pouatche (“sap from a pine”) and French poix (“sap”). The adjective is probably back-formed from pitch-black, reinterpreting "pitch" as meaning "intense(ly)".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA