pitching

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of pitch.

   The team is pitching their new product to investors tomorrow.

   Pitching against a strong wind made every throw harder.

   Note

   One spelling serves every sense of the verb, from smearing a hull with pitch to sending a ball toward a batter, and only context tells which is meant. As a gerund it sits close to the noun for throwing. The gerund takes a direct object (pitching the ball), while the noun takes of (the pitching of horseshoes) and can be counted.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of throwing or casting something.

   Her pitching grew more accurate as the season went on.

   The pitching of horseshoes is a popular game at summer gatherings.

   Similarthrowing, tossing

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A facing of stone laid along a bank to protect it from wear by tides or currents.

   Engineers reinforced the riverbank with pitching to stop the current from eroding the soil.

   The old stone pitching along the seawall had loosened after decades of tides.

   Similarrevetment, facing

   Note

   Here the stones face water rather than wheels. The same craft of setting stone that gives the street-paving sense is used to armor a bank against tides and currents, as a kind of revetment. In engineering usage the word works as a mass noun for the protective layer (stone pitching along a seawall). It can also be counted when it means one built stretch of it.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   Rough paving made of stone blocks set into a street to a fixed grade.

   The old lane's pitching of granite blocks rattled every cart that passed.

   Crews replaced the worn pitching on the steep hill with smooth asphalt.

   Similarpaving

   Note

   A builder's word that names both the work and the finished surface. That is why it can be counted (a pitching of granite blocks) or used as a mass noun (worn pitching on the hill). The stones themselves get a compound of their own. Henry Mayhew's London Characters (c. 1874) sets pitching-stones beside bricks and pavements as the hard fabric of a city life.

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