pit

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a surface excavation for extracting stone or slate

   a British term for `quarry' is `stone pit'

2. 2
   noun

   a sizeable hole (usually in the ground)

   they dug a pit to bury the body

3. 3
   verb

   remove the pits from

   pit plums and cherries

4. 4
   noun

   A hole in the ground.

   The meadow around the town is full of old pits.

5. 5
   noun

   An area at a racetrack used for refueling and repairing the vehicles during a race.

   Two drivers have already gone into the pit this early in the race.

6. 6
   noun

   A hole or trench in the ground, excavated according to grid coordinates, so that the provenance of any feature observed and any specimen or artifact revealed may be established by precise measurement.

   The exact sites of Feng and Hao have yet to be verified, but seven pits containing chariots, horses and other Zhou burial objects were discovered at Fengxi, and a concentration of Western Zhou relics and tombs was found in the area of Doumen in Changan County on the east bank of the Feng River.

7. 7
   noun

   A small surface hole or depression, a fossa.

   [The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […].

8. 8
   noun

   The grave, underworld or Hell.

   Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained.

Etymology

From Dutch pit (“kernel, core”), from Middle Dutch pitte, from Proto-Germanic *pittan (compare dialectal German Pfitze (“pimple”)), oblique of Proto-Germanic *piþō. Compare pith.