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PlainSpell

pit

/pɪt/noun, verb

pit is spelled P-I-T: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,521st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, pit means “A hole in the ground” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of pit is pits.

How many letters and syllables are in pit?

Letters3: P-I-T
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing19 times per million words; the 4,521st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is pit?

Pit appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,521st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce pit?

  • US /pɪt/
  • US [pʰɪʔt]

Pit has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-pit.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with pit?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as pit from its last stressed vowel (/ɪt/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: tip.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of pit

  • pits plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • pitting participle, present
  • pitted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does pit mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A hole in the ground.

    The meadow around the town is full of old pits.

  2. 2

    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.

  3. 3

    The section of a marching band containing mallet percussion instruments and other large percussion instruments too large to be marched, such as the tam-tam; the front ensemble. Can also refer to the area on the sidelines where these instruments are placed.

  4. 4

    A mine.

  5. 5

    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.

  6. 6

    A trading pit.

  7. 7

    colloquialAn armpit.

  8. 8

    A luggage hold.

  9. 9

    A seed inside a fruit; a stone or pip inside a fruit.

    Near-synonym: pip

  10. 10

    The core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it.

  11. 11

    informalA pit bull terrier.

verb

  1. 1

    To make pits in; to mark with little hollows.

    Exposure to acid rain pitted the metal.

  2. 2

    To put (an animal) into a pit for fighting.

  3. 3

    To bring (something) into opposition with something else.

    Are you ready to pit your wits against one of the world's greatest puzzles?

  4. 4

    To return to the pits during a race for refuelling, tyre changes, repairs etc.

  5. 5

    To remove the stone from a stone fruit or the shell from a drupe.

    One must pit a peach to make it ready for a pie.

  6. 6

    To use the PIT maneuver, especially during a car chase.

noun

as PIT
  1. 1

    Initialism of personal income tax.

  2. 2

    Initialism of programmable interval timer.

  3. 3

    Initialism of precision immobilization technique: a method for ending car chases by causing a controlled collision, forcing the pursued car into a spin.

  4. 4

    Initialism of pursuit intervention technique: the same method for ending car chases.

  5. 5

    Initialism of parallel immobilization technique: the same method for ending car chases.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Pit in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfosse (hole in the ground), stand, puits (service area at a motor racetrack), opposer (to bring into opposition), noyau, pépin (seed or stone inside a fruit)
GermanGrube, Loch, Vertiefung (hole in the ground), Box (service area at a motor racetrack), Ausgrabung, Grabestelle (archaeology: excavation hole)
Portugueseburaco, poço, cavouco, vala, fosso (hole in the ground), pitstop (service area at a motor racetrack)
Spanishfosa, agujero, hoya, foya (hole in the ground), pit, box (service area at a motor racetrack)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does pit come from?

From Middle English pit, pet, püt, from Old English pytt, from Proto-West Germanic *puti, from Latin puteus (“trench, pit, well”), although there are phonetic difficulties.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after pit