DCHP-3

pitch ((n.))

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

1n.

a plot of land selected and occupied by a settler.

Quotations

1808
As we approached the American boundary, we found a few settlements, what the Americans call a pitch.
1928
He cleared off a pitch and started a little farm and worked in the woods in the winter. . . .
2a†n.

a sloping stretch in the course of a stream.

Quotations

1811
There are many below this which cannot properly be termed rapids, being merely pitches of the river, where the water runs over sloping beds of rocks and gravel.
1916
The one hundred and ten miles of river between Hinton and Whitecourt was swift, but easily navigable, except for a series of short choppy "pitches," where high waves made some danger.
1945
. . . in the main "pitch" (drop) of Lachine rapids, for instance, the dram bent to the shape of the great waves. . . .
2bn.

a small waterfall or rapids.

Quotations

1834
You cannot take a boat upon your shoulders and carry it over any obstacle such as Cameron's Falls or the pitch at Bobcajewonunk, and in coming up even a practicable rapid in a boat you may indeed put out your whole strength. . . .
1871
The salmon here stand almost always on the ledges of rocks at the top of the rapids and "pitches", as a small fall is called. Some of these pitches are too steep to pole up but most of them can be run. . . .
1946
At the first rapid--a mean, rock-studded seventy-yard pitch--Mary caught her breath and exclaimed: "Surely, you can't take the canoe up there!"
3n. — Lumbering, Hist.

of water in a stream, the point of greatest volume, as the peak of the spring runoff.

Quotations

1883
It is an anxious time . . . for upon a favorable and early start, with a good "pitch of water," may depend the whole success of the "drive" . . . If the ice "hangs on" too long the water may fall--in fact, it is falling every day after a certain pitch. . . .