Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Pitch   Listen
noun
Pitch  n.  
1.
A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand; as, a good pitch in quoits.
Pitch and toss, a game played by tossing up a coin, and calling "Heads or tails;" hence:
To play pitch and toss with (anything), to be careless or trust to luck about it. "To play pitch and toss with the property of the country."
Pitch farthing. See Chuck farthing, under 5th Chuck.
2.
(Cricket) That point of the ground on which the ball pitches or lights when bowled.
3.
A point or peak; the extreme point or degree of elevation or depression; hence, a limit or bound. "Driven headlong from the pitch of heaven, down Into this deep." "Enterprises of great pitch and moment." "To lowest pitch of abject fortune." "He lived when learning was at its highest pitch." "The exact pitch, or limits, where temperance ends."
4.
Height; stature. (Obs.)
5.
A descent; a fall; a thrusting down.
6.
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.
7.
(Mus.) 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. Note: Musical tones with reference to absolute pitch, are named after the first seven letters of the alphabet; with reference to relative pitch, in a series of tones called the scale, they are called one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Eight is also one of a new scale an octave higher, as one is eight of a scale an octave lower.
8.
(Mining) The limit of ground set to a miner who receives a share of the ore taken out.
9.
(Mech.)
(a)
The distance from center to center of any two adjacent teeth of gearing, measured on the pitch line; called also circular pitch.
(b)
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.
(c)
The distance between the centers of holes, as of rivet holes in boiler plates.
10.
(Elec.) The distance between symmetrically arranged or corresponding parts of an armature, measured along a line, called the pitch line, drawn around its length. Sometimes half of this distance is called the pitch.
Concert pitch (Mus.), the standard of pitch used by orchestras, as in concerts, etc.
Diametral pitch (Gearing), the distance which bears the same relation to the pitch proper, or circular pitch, that the diameter of a circle bears to its circumference; it is sometimes described by the number expressing the quotient obtained by dividing the number of teeth in a wheel by the diameter of its pitch circle in inches; as, 4 pitch, 8 pitch, etc.
Pitch chain, a chain, as one made of metallic plates, adapted for working with a sprocket wheel.
Pitch line, or Pitch circle (Gearing), an ideal line, in a toothed gear or rack, bearing such a relation to a corresponding line in another gear, with which the former works, that the two lines will have a common velocity as in rolling contact; it usually cuts the teeth at about the middle of their height, and, in a circular gear, is a circle concentric with the axis of the gear; the line, or circle, on which the pitch of teeth is measured.
Pitch of a roof (Arch.), the inclination or slope of the sides expressed by the height in parts of the span; as, one half pitch; whole pitch; or by the height in parts of the half span, especially among engineers; or by degrees, as a pitch of 30°, of 45°, etc.; or by the rise and run, that is, the ratio of the height to the half span; as, a pitch of six rise to ten run. Equilateral pitch is where the two sloping sides with the span form an equilateral triangle.
Pitch of a plane (Carp.), the slant of the cutting iron.
Pitch of poles (Elec.), the distance between a pair of poles of opposite sign.
Pitch pipe, a wind instrument used by choristers in regulating the pitch of a tune.
Pitch point (Gearing), the point of contact of the pitch lines of two gears, or of a rack and pinion, which work together.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Pitch" Quotes from Famous Books



... had them," said Lionel in a low voice. "The things you wanted most, I mean. Your pitch was ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... harp-master, naked, and in a body, even if it were to snow as thick as meal. Then again, their master would teach them, not sitting cross-legged, to learn by rote a song, either "pallada persepolin deinan" or "teleporon ti boama" raising to a higher pitch the harmony which our fathers transmitted to us. But if any of them were to play the buffoon, or to turn any quavers, like these difficult turns the present artists make after the manner of Phrynis, he used to be thrashed, being beaten with many blows, ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... have found there is but little virtue in a sprinkling-pot after the drought has reached a certain pitch. The soil will not absorb the water. 'Tis like throwing it on a hot stove. I once concentrated my efforts upon a single hill of corn and deluged it with water night and morning for several days, yet its leaves curled up and the ears ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... upper works were cut away, and in the center a casement shield one hundred and eighty feet long was built of pitch-pine and oak, two feet thick. This was covered with iron plates, one to two inches thick and eight inches wide, bolted over each other and through and through the woodwork, giving a protective armor four inches in thickness. ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.

... salient. All comparatively quiet. How lovely it is! The sounds of our men digging in the wet soil mingle now with other small noises. Voices underground. Listen. And a mouth-organ's cheery bray coming from the bowels of the earth. It is pitch-dark. We stand up like Generals surveying the battle-field. No danger. The Boche does not ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson

... Bagmen, and more, Who had travel'd full oft for the firm before, But just at this period they wanted to send Some person on whom they could safely depend— A trust-worthy body, half agent, half friend— On some mercantile matter, as far as Ostend; And the person they pitch'd on was Anthony Blogg A grave, steady man, not addicted to grog— The Bagman, in short, who had lost ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... the government. Among the latter were perhaps a score of members belonging to the Black Hundreds, constituting the extreme right wing of the reactionary group. Between these and the Socialists of the extreme left the assembly was kept at fever pitch. The Black Hundreds, for the most part, indulged in violent tirades of abuse, often in the most disgusting profanity. The Socialists replied with proletarian passion and vigor, and riotous scenes were common. The Second Duma ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... of the green, just before this hollow place, I resolved to pitch my tent. This plain was not above a hundred yards broad, and about twice as long, and lay like a green before my door; and at the end of it descended irregularly every way down into the low ground by the seaside. It was on the N. N. W. side of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... had relieved his feelings and had dug the alkali out of his ears and eyes, he led the Sioux to the rear of the saloon, where a "pinto" was busily engaged in endeavoring to pitch a saddle from his back, employing the intervals in trying to see how much of the picket rope he could ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... pleasant walks where you are: repose and eat gratefully the fruit that falls into your bosom: do not weary your feet with an excursion, at the end whereof you will find no resting-place: reject not the odour of roses for the fumes of pitch and sulphur. What ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... original sentiment. The utmost we say of them, even when they operate with greatest vigour, is, that they represent their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or see it: But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity, as to render these perceptions altogether undistinguishable. All the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landskip. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al

... spell. Jackson, Philips, tree yourselves, while Cass lies flat in the stern, and keeps a good look out on the devils, without exposing himself. Now, my lads, do all this very quietly, and as if you didn't think there was danger at hand. If they see any signs of fear, they will pitch it into you directly. As it is, they are only waiting to settle themselves, and do it at ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... cloth and loaded it with hot corn bread, fried chickens, bacon, buttermilk, coffee, and all manner of country luxuries, Col. Sellers modified his harangue and for a moment throttled it down to the orthodox pitch for a blessing, and then instantly burst forth again as from a parenthesis and clattered on with might and main till every stomach in the party was laden with all it could carry. And when the new-comers ascended the ladder to their comfortable feather ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... times Karl Gustav hurled his columns against them; as often they were driven back, broken and beaten. A few gained a foothold on the walls only to be dashed down to death. The burghers fought for their lives and their homes. Their women carried boiling pitch and poured it over the breastworks, and when they had no more, dragged great beams and rolled them down upon the ladders, sweeping them clear of the enemy. In the hottest fight Gunde Rosenkrantz, one of the king's councillors, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... going from me, and evidently proceeded from something much larger than the cart of Isopel. I could, moreover, hear the stamping of a horse's hoofs at a lumbering trot. Those only whose hopes have been wrought up to a high pitch, and then suddenly dashed down, can imagine what I felt at that moment; and yet when I returned to my lonely tent, and lay down on my hard pallet, the voice of conscience told me that the misery I was then undergoing, I had fully merited, from the ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... water and driving both crew and spectators out into the gloom. Up, up the column rose, spraying itself into mist, and from its iron throat issued a sound unlike that of any other phenomenon. It was a hoarse, rumbling bellow, growing in volume and rising in pitch second by second until it finally attained a shrieking crescendo. Ten thousand safety valves had let go, and they steadily gathered strength and shrillness as they functioned. A shocking sound it became, a sound ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... rose to an unusual pitch and he said, "I will speak. I tell you that there is no reason to suppose they can possibly be hostile. They are small, yes, but that is only important because it is a reflection of the fact that their native worlds are small. Our world has what is for them ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov

... engaged in earnest conversation, his voice spontaneously adopts a certain key or pitch. This is called the natural or middle key, and it varies in different persons. Pitt's voice, it is said, was a full tenor, and Fox's a treble. When a speaker is incapable of loud and forcible utterance ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... up to the highest pitch; and the burthen of his conversation was, how he should protect himself. He had with him a companion in his weakness, and the determination they both came to was, to go over to the enemy early in the morning. Before, however, they could execute their intentions, ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... might wish to be away are often better treated in the way of marriage—that is by a judicious regulation and harmless application—than in the way of asceticism or attempted suppression. It is possible for men—if not in educating themselves, at least in educating others—to pitch their standard and their ideal too high. What they have to do is to recognise their own qualities and the qualities of those whom they influence as they are, and endeavour to use these usually very imperfect materials to the best advantage for the formation ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... and steady, they securely lashed three string pieces across it and then smeared deeply all the seams with pitch, which they were fortunate enough to secure from one of the many strange springs and exudations in the valley. They now had a strong, light canoe, fifteen feet long and a little over two feet wide at ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... and good was Bove Derg. He laid aside his magic wand and so spake: "Let us, my people, leave the Great Lake, and let us pitch our tents on the shores of Lake Darvra. Exceeding dear unto us are the children of Lir, and I, Bove Derg, and Lir, their father, have vowed henceforth to make our home forever by the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... infant a sufficiency of objects presenting different degrees and kinds of resistance, a sufficiency of objects reflecting different amounts and qualities of light, and a sufficiency of sounds contrasted in their loudness, their pitch and their timbre. How fully this a priori conclusion is confirmed by infantile instincts, all will see on being reminded of the delight which every young child has in biting its toys, in feeling its brother's bright jacket-buttons, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... at length presented to him. A certain great person, who at that time was at the head of public affairs, had a neice, who for many private reasons, he found it necessary to dispose of in marriage: Natura was the man he happened to pitch upon, as one who seemed to him a very proper person, and accordingly made him the offer, accompanied with a promise of getting him into a great post, which he knew he had been for a long time, and was still, solliciting, though without ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... felt hat soon came off again, for a head wind lay waiting in the offing, and the "Spartacus" began to pitch and toss in a manner which made all her unseasoned passengers glad to betake themselves to their berths. Mrs. Ashe and Amy were among the earliest victims of sea-sickness; and Katy, after helping them to settle in their staterooms, found herself too dizzy and ill to sit up a moment longer, and ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... it were, constantly eager. There must have been classes in which, unknown to themselves, the stirp of the nation survived; individuals who, aiming at twenty different things, managed, as a resultant, to carry up the army to the pitch in which I had known it and to lay a slow foundation for recovered ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... yearned to repeat his statement in a shout, but neither the pitch nor the proposition seemed suitable to the dinner-table. The Mayoress added ecstatically: 'You can imagine him sitting at the door of his tent, talking with ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... placed several of his rough police at the doors of every church, and any lady who did not exhibit the obligatory red bow on her black dress (in Spanish-speaking countries the women always go to Mass in black), received a dab of pitch on her cheek, on to which the policeman clapped a rosette of red paper. She told it all so graphically that I could almost see the stream of frightened, black-clad women issuing from the church, whilst their husbands ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... ten children than live that night over again. When I had carried my child out into the cold, my mind gave way. In my ravings, I thought the child lay by my side, and above us was a flock of birds— pitch black. I bent over it to shield it, and the birds pecked into my back, into my lungs they pecked. (Stops ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson

... out with Monsieur Vulfran?" said Madame Lachaise quickly; her curiosity was strung to its highest pitch at this statement. She wondered what the all powerful master of Maraucourt could have to do with this ragged little girl and she ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... about the springs. All breathed the scent of the opulent summer, of the season of fruits; pears at our feet and apples by our sides were rolling plentiful, the tender branches, with wild plums laden, were earthward bowed, and the four-year-old pitch seal was loosened from ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... ennui from far lovelier spots than this, and what right have I to suppose that contentment has housed itself as my guest in that old, mossy, brick pile, where mice and wrens run riot? Like Cain and Cartophilus, my curse travels with me, and I no sooner pitch my tent, than lo! the rattle and grin of my skeleton, for which earth is not wide enough to furnish a grave! Well! well! at least I shall not be stared to death here,—shall not be tormented by eye-glasses and sketch-books; can live in that dim, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... they had constantly to be on their guard against the monsters of Hell that strove to arrest their progress. And in passing by a lake of burning pitch, in which tortured souls were burning, the demons that guarded them rushed at Dante and pursued him, eager to hurl him into the lake to lose his life and the hope of Heaven at one and the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... way with life, events crowded on one another, the drama thickened, sensation was tuned to a higher pitch. And it all began, not unludicrously, through the praiseworthy, if rather ill-timed moral indignation of Canon Horniblow's newly ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... Hernan had received from various quarters while on shore at Lerwick about the inhabitants of Lunnasting Castle had excited his curiosity and interest to the highest pitch. Though fully intending to return shortly to Lerwick, he had an object in suddenly leaving Brassay Sound. He also wished to arrive unexpectedly in the neighbourhood ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... ice and their heads enveloped in hot steam; of the perpetual stench which infests their nostrils, the sores which universally covered their bodies; of the terrible pace set by the continual "speeding up" of the pace makers, goaded to a pitch of frenzy; of accidents commonplace in every family; of the garbage pile of refuse from the tables of more fortunate citizens, from which many were forced to satisfy their hunger; of the terrors of the black list, the shut-down, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... pitch dark. The street lamps had been extinguished long ago, and the feeble January sun had not yet tinged with pale colour the heavy clouds that ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... the act of security, to which the royal assent had been refused in the former session. Violent debates arose; so that the house was filled with rage and tumult. The national spirit of independence had been wrought up to a dangerous pitch of enthusiasm. The streets were crowded with people of all ranks, exclaiming against English influence, and threatening to sacrifice as traitors to their country all who should embrace measures that seemed to favour a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... of the nation." By Wilhelm von Humboldt the modern Prussian school system was created; while by Fichte, Arndt, and a galaxy of other writers there was imparted a stimulus by which the patriotism and aspiration of the Prussian people were raised to (p. 248) an unprecedented pitch.[361] ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... to grave the outside of the ship, as well as to pay the seams where he had caulked her to stop the leaks, had got two kettles just let down into the boat, one filled with boiling pitch, and the other with rosin, tallow, and oil, and such stuff as the shipwrights use for that work; and the man that attended the carpenter had a great iron ladle in his hand, with which he supplied the men that were at work with the hot stuff. Two of the enemy's men entered ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... moderate height, the nearest about two miles off, but the whole chain ranging to the east, south, and southwest, as far as the eye could reach. Their summits were crowned with extensive tracts of pitch-pine, checkered with small patches of the quivering aspen. Lower down were thick forests of firs and red cedars, growing out in many places from the very fissures of the rocks. The mountains were broken and precipitous, with huge bluffs protruding ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... then triumphantly resumed his seat among the pirates, and by singing several songs aloud, roused their enthusiasm to such a pitch that Skyrme, starting up, vowed by a sea of wine to drink the Bristol captain's health in a glass which ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... fingers open; unable to do so she stuck her nails into the flesh. At last, in her madness, she set her teeth into the wrist, trying to conquer the girl by pain. Pierrette defied her still, with that same terrible glance of innocence. The anger of the old maid grew to such a pitch that it became blind fury. She seized Pierrette's arm and struck the closed fist upon the window-sill, and then upon the marble of the mantelpiece, as we crack a nut to ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... had her guardian angels that protected her from the violence of her enemies, who sought to burn her in an oven full of pitch, brimstone, and tow. She came out of the oven unhurt, but two men who laid hands on her were consumed by the flames. Wild beasts refused to devour her in their dens, and iron lost its force on her. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... right after supper, boys. Better wait a little. It's true that the half moon will have about set by then, but we can use torches just as well. Besides, I always think they add to the picturesque character of the hunt. I've had them all prepared of pitch pine, full of resin, and able to give us ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... have been easier, or more delightful, than to pitch one's tent in a certain pine grove not far away, and pass days and weeks in forgetting the world of cares, and reading favorite books, lulled at all hours of day and night by the softened roar of the ocean ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... passport is in his pocket; and he speaks all tongues of German men. So, fearless of gendarmes and soldiers, he lies down, in the blazing German afternoon, upon the shaly soil; and watches the bright-eyed lizards hunt flies along the roasting-walls, and the great locusts buzz and pitch and leap; green locusts with red wings, and grey locusts with blue wings; he notes the species, for he is tired and lazy, and has so many thoughts within his head, that he is glad to toss them all away, and give up his soul, if possible, to locusts ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... keep out of sight and hang around the levee for an hour or two. If I don't turn up before you get tired, pitch the thing into the river and go about your business. How much money does the captain ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... important part—that of "getting the lesson across" to the class. Many a valuable lesson, full of helpfulness, has been lost to the pupils because the teacher lacked the power to bring his class to the right pitch for receiving and retaining impressions. Many a class period has been wasted because the teacher failed to present the material of the lesson so that it gripped interest and ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts

... with Algernon, in order to endow him, in addition to his own rich inheritance, with all the political influence attendant on the vast estate to which she was heiress, and so build up the family, in the consideration of government, to any pitch of coroneted rank their high-reaching ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... said, "to-morrow night we will pitch them in good form; but for a time there will be no occasion for the cattle to be driven in every night, the longer they have ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... exceedingly bad. In past times, as you know from the histories you read, this country has been a fighting country; we have been belligerents, and, as belligerents, we have carried maritime law, by our own powerful hand, to a pitch that has been very oppressive to foreign, and especially so to neutral nations. Well, now, for the first time, unhappily,—almost for the first time in our history for the last two hundred years,—we are not belligerents, but neutrals; ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... and pours some of it towards the four parts of the world, in allusion to the command of Christ: "Go teach all nations, baptising them" (Matt. XXVIII). He then dips the paschal candle three times into the water, singing, and each time raising his voice to a higher pitch than before: "May the power of the Holy Ghost descend upon the fulness of this font"; as when He descended, says Gavant, "in the form of a dove at the baptism of Christ represented by this candle plunged into the water". Then breathing ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... has put into this book his experience of twenty-two summers of actual camping with boys. The twenty-three chapters are filled with information such as this: where to go; what to take; how to layout a camp, pitch tent, build a camp fire; what to cook and how to cook it, how to get well if you eat too much of it; directions for long trips, short trips, any trip at all; something to do every hour of the day, from reveille ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... the middle of the room: all the seats being arranged as close to the four walls as could be managed. The candles of those days gave but a faint light compared to the light of the immense fire, which it was a point of hospitality to keep at the highest roaring, blazing pitch; the young women occupied the seats, with the exception of two or three of the elder ones, who, in an eager desire to show their capability, insisted on helping Mrs. Corney in her duties, very much to her annoyance, as there were certain little ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... rate with Lord Silverbridge. But to do so he must make a clean breast with his Lordship and confess the intended sin. As he heard all that was being done, his conscience troubled him sorely. With pitch of this sort he had never soiled himself before. He was to have three thousand pounds from Green, and then there would be the bets he himself had laid against the horse,—by Green's assistance! It would be the making of him. Of what use had been all his "square" work to him? And then Silverbridge ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... exquisite sheeny lustre peculiar to gems of what are termed the first water, and, as nearly as might be, an inch in diameter. Such a find as this was more than enough to make me forget all the disagreeableness of the work upon which I was engaged, and to stimulate my curiosity to its highest pitch. Accordingly I proceeded with zest, and within an hour had secured a round dozen of good-sized pearls—although none of them approached the first in size—together with a sufficient quantity of smaller pearls to fill about one-third of an ordinary half-pint tumbler. Nor was this first ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... under canvas again, I reckon! But I made Thompson let those gold-framed mirrors that used to stand behind the bar go into the bargain, and they sort of furnish the room. You know the saloon is one of them patent houses you can take to pieces, and I've been reckoning you boys will have to pitch in and help me to take the whole shanty over to the laurel bushes, and put ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... to him, and back again. Then her eyes went fearfully to the remote mountain. Rumblings came from it now. They were not loud. They were hardly more than dull growlings, at the lower limit of audible pitch. They were like faint and distant thunder. There were flashings like lightning in the cloud which now ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... the corpse, "I'd be arter making love to the widow mysel', only it mightn't be altogether dacent before Teddy's put out o' the way." "You make love to the widow!" responded the smart-looking Florence M'Carthy; "to the divil I pitch you, you bouncing bogtrotter! it's myself alone that will have that onor, bekase Teddy O'Rafferty wished me to take his wife as a legacy. 'It's all I've got, Mr. Florence,' 32said he to me one day, 'to lave behind for the redemption of the small trifle I owe you.'" "It aint the like o' either ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... "If we moved now we might walk directly into the arms of the enemy, and we can afford to wait the night through, anyhow. Tayoga, we have got to keep you fresh, because your senses and faculties must be at their finest and most delicate pitch for trailing, so now you go to sleep. All the rest of you do the ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... him the former are but coyotes, the latter turkey buzzards both cowardly creatures, timid as hares, except when the quarry is helpless. They must not know he is this; and to deceive them he shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and shouts at the highest pitch of his voice. But only at intervals, when they appear too threateningly near. He knows the necessity of economising his cries and gestures. By too frequent repetition they might cease ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... full, and if a new piece from his hand had appeared, it was sure to be read by Scott the Sunday evening afterwards; and that with such delighted emphasis as showed how completely the elder bard had kept up his enthusiasm for poetry at pitch of youth, and all his admiration of genius, free, pure, and unstained by the least drop of literary ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... so wrought up by a good work of fiction, their minds are raised to such a pitch of courage and daring, all their faculties so sharpened and braced, their whole nature so stimulated, that they can for the time being attempt and accomplish things which were impossible to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... the cold, the ice and the snow that had sent the British into the ballrooms for protection, and had afflicted and distressed the patriots at Valley Forge. With the advent of favorable weather, operations began anew; the hopes and the courage of the colonists were now exalted to the highest pitch. The disasters of Long Island and Fort Washington had been offset by the victory at Saratoga. While the British had taken and held the important cities of New York and Philadelphia as well as the town of Newport, still they had lost an army and had gained nothing but the ground ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... let us not pitch and toss words. No use quarreling over a dead boy. What right have ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... Davy gave his voice its lowest pitch, "Mrs. Gillis, that woman was Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Lannarck, and I know you won't condemn me or be jealous when I say that she was the kindest, most considerate woman that ever drew the breath of life. There have been a lot of noble women on this troubled earth, doing what they ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... noon the tired boy slept, and through the afternoon, opening his eyes for a moment occasionally as the voices of the women rose to a higher pitch in a mournful dirge they were singing over the missing, and at intervals the jackal would raise his sharp muzzle and sniff the air. There was some note in the dirge that disturbed the boy, and there was some taint in the air that made the jackal uneasy. Once it stood up as if to explore, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... instructions, as if nothing else were to be done or thought of. She began to wonder, it is true, why she did not wake up, and at what still more intolerable pitch of dizzy trouble her spirit would struggle out of the maze, and make her conscious that nothing of all this had actually happened. Of course it was not real; no such black, easterly day as this had yet begun to be; Judge Pyncheon had not talked with, her. Clifford had not laughed, pointed, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... but two-thirds of Ruber's size, he was but one-third of his age, and saw better at night. On the other hand he was less easily seen, but the midnight there was so still and deserted, that that was of small consequence. In a few minutes they were out together in a lane as dark as pitch, compelled now to keep to the roads, for there was not light enough to see the pocket-compass by which the surgeon ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... hold pretty well," he told the two who expected to make use of it during the day. "Of course if the lake gets very rough so that you pitch about considerably, keep on the watch for a sudden inflow of water. The planks will hold, but I'm not so sure about the oakum I pounded ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... attained or maintained. It is he who keeps the force up to the line; without him each teacher is a law unto himself and there will be as many standards as there are teachers. Human nature is innately slothful and negligent, and needs the spirit of supervision to keep it toned up to the necessary pitch. Supervision over a large force of workers of any kind is absolutely necessary to secure efficiency, and to keep service ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... this system of free government, the energy of the Athenian people was developed with amazing rapidity. The spirit of patriotism, of zeal for the honor and welfare of Athens, rose to a high pitch. The power and resources of the city increased in a proportionate degree. Culture kept ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the other day your piano, and give you my best thanks. It arrived in good tune, and is exactly at concert-pitch. As yet I have not played much on it, for the weather is at present so fine that I am almost always in the open air. I wish you as pleasant weather for your holidays. Write me a few words (if you find that you have not sufficiently exercised your pen in the course of the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... the fury of this assault, received the assailants with brisk and well-directed volleys of shot and arrows; while the women and children, thronging the roofs and balconies of the houses, discharged on their heads boiling oil, pitch, and missiles of every description. But the weapons of the Moors glanced comparatively harmless from the mailed armor of the Spaniards, while their own bodies, loosely arrayed in such habiliments as they could throw over them in the confusion of the night, presented a fatal ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... finished making his final dispositions when his malady increased to a violent pitch. "On the 5th of March, forty hours' public prayers were ordered in all the churches of Paris, which is not generally done except in the case of kings," says Madame de Motteville. The cardinal had sent for M. Jolt, parish-priest of St. Nicholas des Champs, a man of great reputation for piety, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... submergence of coastal ranges, have steep surfaces and scant lowlands. Their inhabitants command limited area at best. Driven to agriculture by their isolation, drawn to it by the favorable oceanic climate, such islands develop terrace tillage in its most pronounced form. On the precipitous pitch of Teneriffe, every particle of alluvial soil is collected to make gardens. Long lines of camels, laden with boxes of earth, may be seen coming almost daily into the town of Santa Cruz, bringing soil for the terraces.[1281] This ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... before the cradle, while you yell and dance round with the knives. That ought to be made 'the moment' of the whole piece. The great thing is to make enough noise. If you can yell louder than the talking-machine outfit on the next pitch we ought to turn money away. While you are at it I start a fresh row outside—shouts, cheers, groans, words of command and a paper bag or two. Seeing that the game is up you make a rush at the old woman; she downs you with the chopper, turns the ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... most of us can count a "Charles Robert" in our environment. Someone whose "worm i' the bud" of their character has so completely spoilt its early flower on account of the "one ruinous vice" of "censoriousness," of perpetual nagging, and fault-finding developed to such a pitch that it has eaten out at last the fair heart of human forbearance and kindness which is the birthright of everyone. Such a person makes the true, free development of others in his proximity a harder task than God intended it to be, for this reason: that the best ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... first at the love-dances. Dancing as a means of attracting the right pitch of passion in the male and the female has always been used in the service of the sexual instinct. It gives the highest and most complex expression of movement, and may be said to have been evolved by love from the more brutal courtships of battle display.[60] The characteristic ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... that do not understand how to go, unless their instructors be the crack of the whip or the tug of the bridle. 'I will guide thee with Mine eye.' A glance is enough where there are mutual understanding and love. Two musical instruments in adjoining rooms, tuned to the same pitch, have a singular affinity, and if a note be struck on the one the other will vibrate to the sound. And so hearts here that love Jesus Christ and keep in unison with Him, and are sympathetic with His desires, will learn to know His will, and will re-echo the music that comes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... appointed the place of meeting. Nothing could be more contrary to Madame de Pompadour's character, which was one of extreme timidity, than to engage in such an adventure. But her curiosity was raised to the highest pitch, and, moreover, everything was so well arranged that there was not the slightest risk. Madame had let M. de Gontaut, and her valet de chambre, into the secret. The latter had hired two rooms for his niece, who was then ill, at Versailles, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... of the series referred to, entitled "Thou art a God that Hidest Thyself," there is an abundance of fictitious emotion and spurious rhetoric. From beginning to end there is a painful strain that never relaxes, reminding us of singers who pitch their voices too high and have to render all the upper notes in falsetto. An attempt is made to employ poetical imagery, but it ludicrously fails. The heaven of the Book of Revelation, with its gold and silver and precious stones, is nothing but ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... for the gentle wind had died away. But suddenly the quiet was rent and shivered, and Spike, deafened by the report, glanced up to see Ravenslee rise to his feet, stagger forward blindly, then, with arms outflung, pitch forward upon his face and ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... the love of justice, cares for nothing but the lion's share of the wealth wrung by threat of starvation from the hands of the classes that create it. If you interrupt me with a silly speech, Hetty, I will pitch you into the canal, and die of sorrow for my lost love afterwards. You know what I am, according to the conventional description: a gentleman with lots of money. Do you know the wicked origin of that ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... as is shown by the shadow of the figures; and what sort of color is the sky at the top of the picture? Is it pale and gray with heat, full of sunshine, and unfathomable in depth? On the contrary, it is of a pitch of darkness which, except on the Mont Blanc or Chimborazo, is as purely impossible as color can be. He might as well have painted it coal black; and it is laid on with a dead coat of flat paint, having no one quality or resemblance of sky about ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... of a whistle or other "closed pipe" depends on its depth. The theory of acoustics shows that the length of each complete vibration is four times that of the depth of the closed pipe, and since experience proves that all sound, whatever may be its pitch, is propagated at the same rate, which under ordinary conditions of temperature and barometric pressure may be taken at 1120 feet, or 13,440 inches per second,—it follows that the number of vibrations in the note of a whistle ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... with them. It was now pitch dark. I was creeping up behind them softly, that they might not hear me. My mother was still crying. My father was saying: 'It's all your own fault. Why did you wish to see him? It was absurd in our position. We could have helped him from afar, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... fragments. A little while later, fuel pumps began to whine somewhere in the tail of the ship. Then the acceleration dropped to zero as the second-stage thrust was terminated. There was a series of thumps as explosive bolts released the second stage. The whine of the pumps dropped in pitch as fuel gushed through them, and acceleration returned in a rush. The acceleration lasted for a few seconds, tapered off quickly, and ended. A light winked on on the instrument panel as the ship announced its mission ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino

... bulky suit Dane did not lean forward to stare up into the shaft. But, as his uncertainty reached a fever pitch, the platform descended and he took two steps forward into temporary safety, still clutching the cage. At the first try the thick fingers of his gloved hand slipped from the lever and he hit it again, harder than he intended, so that he found himself being wafted upward with a ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... that a little before I had resolved upon this design, a gentleman[53] had written Predictions, and two or three other pieces in my name, which had rendered it famous through all parts of Europe; and by an inimitable spirit and humour, raised it to as high a pitch of reputation as it could possibly ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... the acquaintance of four newspaper men. Singly, they are my encyclopedias, friends, mentors, and sometimes bankers. But now and then it happens that all of them will pitch upon the same printworthy incident of the passing earthly panorama and will send in reportorial constructions thereof to their respective journals. It is then that, for me, it is to laugh. For it seems that to each of ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... a prayer at a high pitch, as if intended to cover all the camp-ground and be heard to the outermost bounds. The sincerity of the sound made Levin Dennis feel that the camp might still be inhabited by some spiritual congregation which the eyes of profane visitors could not see—the remainder ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... &c., usually has upon the gestures and exterior, can so easily compass. To know the internal workings and movements of a great mind, of an Othello or a Hamlet for instance, the when and the why and the how far they should be moved; to what pitch a passion is becoming; to give the reins and to pull in the curb exactly at the moment when the drawing in or the slackening is most graceful; seems to demand a reach of intellect of a vastly different extent ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... Grecian rampart, and were about to set fire to the ships. Neptune, seeing the Greeks so pressed, came to their rescue. He appeared in the form of Calchas the prophet, encouraged the warriors with his shouts, and appealed to each individually till he raised their ardor to such a pitch that they forced the Trojans to give way. Ajax performed prodigies of valor, and at length encountered Hector. Ajax shouted defiance, to which Hector replied, and hurled his lance at the huge warrior. It was well aimed and struck Ajax, where the belts that bore ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... the Temple, but they were in the minority. All along, the crowd had been more inclined for private revenge than for martial deeds of valour; the Bastille had been taken by daylight; the effort might not have been so successful on a pitch-black night such as this, when one could not see one's hand before one's eyes, and the drizzling rain went through ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... command of the depot for the present. Of course, he will go out if a vacancy occurs above him; but in any case he will go with the next draft, and the next two troops will be wound up to service pitch in another couple of months, so I expect by the spring he will be out there. I should not have minded if we too had waited until then, for of course the army have gone into its winter quarters, and there will be nothing doing ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... European, presumably made by a native. "It is inconceivable," he concludes, "that an introduced art could have developed at so rapid a rate that in seventy years, probably less, for this art would hardly have been introduced the first day, such a high pitch of excellence could have been attained ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... devised every possible means to succor Harlem, and was only restrained from going personally to its rescue by the tears of the whole population of Holland. By his decision and the spirit which he diffused through the country, the people were lifted to a pitch of heroism by which Alkmaar was saved. Yet, during all this harassing period, he had no one to lean upon but himself. "Our affairs are in pretty good; condition in Holland and Zealand," he wrote, "if I only had some aid. 'Tis impossible for me to support alone so many labors, and the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... a rainy and pitch-black night, Gaspard Roussillon came home. He tapped on the door again and again. Alice heard, but she hesitated to speak or move. Was she growing cowardly? Her heart beat like a drum. There was but one person in all the world that she could think of—it was not M. Roussillon. Ah, no, she ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... finished surface, after which the omitted panels were completed. The water-proofing consisted of three layers of Hydrex felt, of a brand known as Pennsylvania Special, and four layers of coal-tar pitch. The pitch contained not less than 25% of carbon, softened at 60 deg. Fahr., and melted at a point between 96 deg. and 106 deg. Fahr. The melting point was determined by placing 1 gramme of pitch on a lead disk over a hole, 5/16-in. in diameter, and immersed ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Site of the Terminal Station. Paper No. 1157 • George C. Clarke

... black as pitch, jammed close together. Their four hands flew all over the door at once, but they could touch no handle. The next moment, some revolving apparatus that had been set in motion, flung them off their feet. Round and round it swirled, striking ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... dust arising far ahead along the road wrought up his hopes to a Bluebeard pitch, as regularly to fall. First came a cast-off soldier from the war in the Netherlands, rakishly forlorn, his breastplate full of rusty dents, his wild hair worn by his steel cap, swaggering along on a sorry hack with an old belt full of pistolets, and his long sword ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... was never a stronger instance of this than in James Booty, of whom we are now speaking. He was a boy rather without capacity than obstinate, whose inclinations, one would have expected, could hardly have attained to that pitch of wickedness in thought, which it appeared both by evidence and his own confessions, he had actually practised. His father was a peruke-maker in Holborn, and not in so bad circumstances but that he could have afforded him a tolerable education, if he had ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... are ground of convex and concave glasses in one shop. Concave basins cast in iron of the radii of curvature of proposed lenses are fixed in rows on a frame, and rubbed with water and emery. A concentric convex basin is then covered with round pieces of plate glass fixed with pitch; and the convex stir face, with its glass pieces, is then turned and wabbled in the concave basin by steam power. In this manner from six to twelve dozen glasses are ground at once by one basin working within the other on an eccentric axle which wabbles ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... Porthos, "like the crows, you always bring bad omens. Who could intercept us on such a night as this, pitch dark, when one does not see more than twenty ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... parts of the kingdom, above a hundred cities, castles, or fortresses;[*] nor could that prince deem himself secure from the invasion threatened him by all the other Protestants in Europe. The nobility and gentry of England were roused to such a pitch of resentment, that they offered to levy an army of twenty-two thousand foot and four thousand horse, to transport them into France, and to maintain them six months at their own charge: but Elizabeth, who was cautious in her measures, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... in which the nitration is carried out should consist of one story, have a light roof, walls of hard brick, and a concrete floor of 9 to 12 inches thick, and covered with pitch, to protect its surface from the action of the acids. The floor should be inclined to a drain, to save any nitro-benzol spilt. Fire hydrants should be placed at convenient places, and it should be possible to at once fill the building with steam. A 2-inch pipe, with a cock outside the building, ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... And what avails reviling? Such pitch without defiling Can "Prince" or "Patriot" touch? This quicksand unromantic Closes on him, the Antic, Whose hands with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... to see much of Scrapplehead when at last they got there. It was a small place, nestled in an angle of the hills. The misty gray ocean lay beyond. Its voice came to their ears as they descended the last steep pitch, a hushed low voice with a droning tone, as though it were sleepy-time with the great sea. There was no tavern in the village, and they applied at several houses before finding any one willing to accommodate them. By this time, Eyebright was very tired, and could hardly keep from crying ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... full of fun, even in the worst of times. During some fearful storms she was safely housed in the cabin, and it amused her to see the things pitch and roll as far as their chains would allow them. Sometimes, too, they had to hold the food in their hands, but she never knew the danger of the worst storms. Rachel would not admit that she was afraid, and ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... front. The continual straggling of some companies in the rear of Johnson's brigade caused me to become separated from the remainder of the column by a wide gap, and I was for some time entirely ignorant of what direction I should take. The night was pitch-dark, and I was compelled to light torches and seek the track of the column by the foam dropped from the mouths of the horses and the dust kicked up by their feet. At every halt which this groping search necessitated, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... Abimelech himself had had in childhood. Since the trance he was a changed man; his passion for souls was now as great as his passion for pleasure had been before, and he had a name for working himself and his congregations up to a higher pitch than any one who had been on that circuit for years past. It was known to be a terrible thing to see Abimelech wrestling ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... pretty cupful of water, the dip and glide of a certain canoe, the remembrance of a red tam-o’-shanter merging afar off in an October sunset—my purpose to leave the place strengthened as I thought of these things. My nerves were keyed to a breaking pitch and I turned ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... one occasion, the bad taste to keep his seat at the rising of the court, and with characteristic malevolence of expression say to the footmen, 'Mind, my men, and take care of that judge of yours; or, by Jove, you'll pitch him out of the window.' It is needless to say that this brutal speech did not raise the speaker in the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... and worships besides being "in the darkness of apostasy."[145:1] But after the abatement of that wonderful first fervor which within a lifetime carried "its line into all the earth, and its words to the ends of the world," it was impossible to hold it to this pitch. Claiming no divine right to all men's allegiance, it felt no duty of opening the door to all men's access. It was free to exclude from the meeting on arbitrary and even on frivolous grounds. As zeal decayed, the energies of the Society ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... coming of Nicholas I., Czar of all the Russias, to the Court of St. James in 1844, followed a little later by William, Prince of Prussia—afterwards William I. of Germany, and by a return visit of the King and Queen of the French; kept the social demands of the period up to a very high pitch. Yet the quiet, careful surroundings of an almost ideal home were given to the young Prince and to those who afterwards came to the family circle, by a mother who, in the midst of many national cares and private anxieties could write to her much-respected ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... really within a factory's walls. From the first to the fifth floor I went in an elevator—a freight elevator; there are no others, of course. This lift was a terrifying affair; it shook and rattled in its shaft, shook and rattled in pitch darkness as it rose between "safety doors"—continuations of the building's floors. These doors open to receive the ascending elevator, then slowly close, in order that the shaft may be covered and the operatives ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... often wondered whether I have a taste for music or no. My ear appears to me as dull as my voice is incapable of musical expression, and yet I feel the utmost pleasure in any such music as I can comprehend, learned pieces always excepted. I believe I may be about the pitch of Terry's connoisseurship, and that "I have a reasonable good ear for a jig, but your solos and sonatas give ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... surpasses all that Greece, (176) melodious but simple in the service of the altar, ever poured forth from her vocal groves in solemn adoration. By the force of native genius, the ancients elevated their heroes to a pitch of sublimity that excites admiration, but to soar beyond which they could derive no aid from mythology; and it was reserved for a bard, inspired with nobler sentiments than the Muses could supply, to sing the praises of that Being whose ineffable perfections ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... had irritated Napoleon to the very highest pitch, and he received Josephine with studied coldness, and with an air of the most cruel indifference. He had no communication with her for three days, during which time he frequently spoke to me of suspicions which his imagination converted into certainty; and threats of divorce ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... is no better than we can get, any day, at the rejuvenescent Cornhill Coffee-House, unless the whole man, with soul, intellect, and stomach, is ready to appreciate it, and unless, moreover, there is such a harmony in all the circumstances and accompaniments, and especially such a pitch of well-according minds, that nothing shall jar rudely against the guest's thoroughly awakened sensibilities. The world, and especially our part of it, being the rough, ill-assorted, and tumultuous place we find it, a beefsteak is about as good ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the anxious days of the Civil War," the lecturer continued, "and every-one was worked up to a high pitch of excitement most of the time. When it was rumored that a battle had been fought the newspapers sold 'like hot cakes.' Any other boy would have been satisfied if he could supply as many papers as people wanted and let it go at that. ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... front, SIMWA, TAVWOTS, and others are gambling with dice made of halves of black-walnut hulls, filled with pitch; the number indicated by bits of shell embedded in the pitch. They are shaken in a small basket and turned out on a ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin

... the body in which it once dwelt; and even, perhaps, that the soul's existence in the other world depended in some way on the preservation of the body. So they made the bodies of their dead friends into what we call "mummies," steeping them for many days in pitch and spices till they were embalmed, and then wrapping them round in fold upon fold of fine linen. So they have endured all these hundreds of years, to be stored at last in a museum, and gazed upon by people who live in lands which were savage ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... wasn't much incommoded. That sort of pitch-darkness is rather becoming to my style of beauty, I find. The only objection was that ...
— Five O'Clock Tea - Farce • W. D. Howells

... fight now and Lagonda Ledge and the whole Walnut Valley would go down in history as famous soil. It was a banner year for Sunrise, and enthusiasm was at fever pitch, which in college is the only healthy temperature. In this last battle Sunrise turned again to Victor Burleigh as its highest hope. Although this was his first game for the season, he had never failed to bring victory to the Sunrise banners, and in all his base-ball practice ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... and led the procession down the pitch-black road toward the town. The men fell in line two abreast and slowly marched ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... on husbandry. Under the later empire agriculture sank into a condition of neglect, in which it remained throughout the Dark Ages. In Spain its revival was due to the Saracens, and by them, and their successors the Moors, agriculture was carried to a high pitch of excellence. The work on agriculture1 of Ibn-al-Awame, who lived in the 12th century A.D., treats of the varieties of soils, manuring, irrigation, ploughing, sowing, harvesting, stock, horticulture, arboriculture and plant diseases, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... ter give it a good preunin'. Growin' as it does daown in the ditch, or puddle beside this store, it flourishes, an' lops its limbs nigh onto across the square; an' the rickety fence beside it ought ter be straightened up 'fore some of the fellers that are perpetually leanin' 'gainst it pitch with ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks

... on their instruments; but when they have heated themselves by degrees, they leave off drumming, and fall to leaping, dancing, and clapping their hands, at the same time straining their voices to the utmost pitch, till at length they have no regard either to the tune or the pauses, and seem rather a riotous than a religious assembly. For this manner of worship they cite the psalm of David, "O clap your hands all ye nations." Thus they misapply the sacred ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... night could have stood such a killing pace and kept up with fresh dogs—no team save this one. Nevertheless, the pace WAS killing it, and as they began to round the bluff at Klondike City, he could feel the pitch of strength going out of his animals. Almost imperceptibly they lagged behind, and foot by foot Big Olaf drew away until he led ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... hand to hand with the Texan Rangers; and they were roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm when they found themselves again in front of a regular force of troopers, instead of Home Guards or guerillas. With their sabres in hand they rushed upon the foe with all the speed to which they could ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... imagined; he had almost forgotten his fatherhood, for Roger had taken the part of a true and kind friend in explaining the position. At the same time Valerie's influence was so great that, by the middle of dinner, the Baron was tuned up to the pitch, and was all the more cheerful for having unwonted anxieties to conceal; but the hapless man was not yet aware that in the course of that evening he would find himself in a cleft stick, between his happiness and the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... He felt that it was physically possible to say, "Because I love you!" but that it was not morally possible. He lowered his pitch and answered, simply, "Because I wanted to do something ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... at this exalted position, there is no end of the feats which Cartouche performed; and his band reached to such a pitch of glory, that if there had been a hundred thousand, instead of a hundred of them, who knows but that a new and popular dynasty might not have been founded, and "Louis Dominic, premier Empereur des Francais," might have performed innumerable ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the unreasoning settlers to this pitch, Riel was satisfied. Public feeling needed but the fuse of some bold step of his to burst into instant flame. As the Lieutenant-Governor drew near the territory the agitator was almost beside himself with ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... lip, in man as well as in woman. This nervous state is further evidenced by a peculiar intonation of words, the persons speaking mechanically, while the voices of many rough-looking men are changed into such tremulous notes of so high a pitch, as to make one imagine that a child, on the verge of tears, is speaking. Crying is so rare that your correspondent saw not a tear on any face in Johnstown, but the women that are left are haggard, with pinched features and heavy, dark ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... sensitive, especially as respected himself. All his passions were strong. Much of this might probably be said of any young gentleman of position accustomed to have his own way: lads of spirit (who can afford it) do not put up with slights; young noblemen in moments of exhilaration may even pitch into policemen; and generally, where there is no temptation to offend, much is forgiven. The danger in Richard Yorke's case was that his position was far from assured, while he had done some things which might prove great obstacles to his ever winning one. He had ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... his enemies, which might haue bin an oracle for his twohande interpretation. Quid plura, his battell is pitcht, by pitcht, I do not meane set in order, for that was far from their order, onely as sailers do pitch their appareil, to make it stormeproofe, so had most of them pitcht their patcht clothes, to make them impearceable. A neerer way than to be at the charges of armor by halfe: and in another sort hee might ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash



Words linked to "Pitch" :   submarine, pitch black, concert pitch, lurch, heater, pitch into, accommodate, key, low pitch, play, bitumen, sales talk, rear, cant over, sinker, approach shot, baseball game, huckster, variable-pitch propeller, fastball, tune, pitch pine, breaking ball, soprano, gradient, United Kingdom, balk, wild pitch, coal tar, publicity, low frequency, approach, monger, pitch blackness, treble, promotion, camp down, ship, gear, promotional material, high, beaner, hummer, spitter, cards, popularize, toss back, movement, high-low-jack, card game, vend, fall, motility, adapt, move, hit, change-of-pace, tar, ascend, sky, throw, knuckler, sell, ball, international pitch, change-of-pace ball, low-pitched, deliver, pitch pipe, fever pitch, deal, fling, set, U.K., Great Britain, slope, baseball, bender, pitch-black, pitcher, tilt, all fours, lag, pitch-dark, delivery, position, cock, submarine ball, careen, screwball, Britain, slant, loft, northern pitch pine, rock, pitch contour, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, change-up, hawk, go down, passed ball, pitch shot, rake, absolute pitch, toss, motion, bass, climb, stoop, spitball, strike, erect, philharmonic pitch, knuckleball, perfect pitch, high-pitched, sound property, descend, curve ball, pitch in, tone, shift, pitch accent, cant, trade, pitch apple, flip, low, incline, high frequency, tenor, sway, angle, camp, dip, sales pitch, peddle, auction pitch, popularise, place, curve, come down



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com