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# pit

«pit» in Mova's school dictionary: **a large hole in the ground, dug by people or made naturally** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a pit, pits); verb (pit, pits, pitted, pitting)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A pit is a large hole in the ground, dug by people or made naturally. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#m1)

2) A pit is a coal mine (UK). [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#m2)

3) (US, Canada) A pit is the hard stone in the middle of some fruits, like a peach or cherry. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#m3)

4) In motor racing, the pits are the place beside the track where cars stop for fuel and new tyres. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#m4)

5) (slang, UK) A very messy room or place can be called a pit. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#m5)

6) To pit one person against another is to make them compete or fight. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#m6)

7) The pit of your stomach is the deep inside of your belly, where you feel fear. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#m7)

8) Pit can also mean the hollow place under your arm, the armpit. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#m8)

### sense in the lessons

In history lessons pits are coal mines where miners (and once even children) worked; in science, pits and craters form in rock and on the Moon. In stories a pit can be a trap, and in the Bible Joseph's brothers threw him into a pit. In everyday life, "the pits" means the very worst. Phrases: "fire pit", "sand pit", "orchestra pit", "the pits", "a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach", "pit against".

### examples

- The workers dug a deep pit for the new pond. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x1)
- (Bible) Joseph's brothers threw him into a dry pit. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x2)
- My great-grandad worked down the pit in Wales. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x3)
- (US) Be careful not to swallow the cherry pit. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x4)
- The racing car came into the pits for new tyres. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x5)
- The final pitted our school against last year's champions. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x6)
- I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach before the test. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x7)
- (informal) Losing the match in the last minute was the pits. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x8)
- (slang, UK) Your bedroom is a total pit — tidy it! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x9)
- “Here, in my left arm-pit,” answered he. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/#x10)

### note

Countable noun: a pit, pits. Past of the verb: pitted (double t). A "pitted" olive has had its stone removed; "pitted" skin or metal has many small holes. In British English the fruit centre is usually a "stone", in American English a "pit". "The pits" (plural, informal) means terrible.

### In the corpora

- [Pit vipers such as rattlesnakes have heat-sensing pits on their faces that find warm-blooded prey in total darkness.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/30-snakes-and-lizards/10/)
- [Badgers are very clean: they drag in fresh grass and bracken for bedding and dig special toilet pits away from the sett.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/405-the-real-animals-of-the-wild-wood-badger-stoat-weasel-ferret-field-mice-and-winter-hedgehogs/9/)
- [Open-pit mines dig huge holes, some over a kilometre deep, and leave mountains of waste rock.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/60-metals-mining-and-what-they-cost/13/)
- [The brothers threw Joseph into a pit, sold him to traders and told their father he had been killed by an animal.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/5-joseph-and-his-brothers/9/)
- [and they took him, and cast him into the pit — and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/GEN.1202/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «pit» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pit/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.