a thick, black, lustrous, and sticky substance obtained by boiling down tar. it is used in calking the seams of ships; also in coating rope, canvas, wood, ironwork, etc., to preserve them.-see pitchstone.-to cover over or smear with pitch.-fig.: to darken; to blacken; to obscure.-to throw, generally with a definite aim or purpose; to cast; to hurl; to toss; as, to pitch quoits; to pitch hay; to pitch a ball.-to thrust or plant in the ground, as stakes or poles; hence, to fix firmly, as by means of poles; to establish; to arrange; as, to pitch a tent; to pitch a camp.-to set, face, or pave with rubble or undressed stones, as an embankment or a roadway.-to fix or set the tone of; as, to pitch a tune.-to set or fix, as a price or value.-to fix or place a tent or temporary habitation; to encamp.-to light; to settle; to come to rest from flight.-to fix one's choise; -- with on or upon.-to plunge or fall; esp., to fall forward; to decline or slope; as, to pitch from a precipice; the vessel pitches in a heavy sea; the field pitches toward the east.-a throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand; as, a good pitch in quoits.-that point of the ground on which the ball pitches or lights when bowled.-a point or peak; the extreme point or degree of elevation or depression; hence, a limit or bound.-height; stature.-a descent; a fall; a thrusting down.-the point where a declivity begins; hence, the declivity itself; a descending slope; the degree or rate of descent or slope; slant; as, a steep pitch in the road; the pitch of a roof.-the relative acuteness or gravity of a tone, determined by the number of vibrations which produce it; the place of any tone upon a scale of high and low.-the limit of ground set to a miner who receives a share of the ore taken out.-the distance from center to center of any two adjacent teeth of gearing, measured on the pitch line; -- called also circular pitch.-the length, measured along the axis, of a complete turn of the thread of a screw, or of the helical lines of the blades of a screw propeller.-the distance between the centers of holes, as of rivet holes in boiler plates.