Etymology

pit

P3I1T1

Today it means: A hole in the ground. Full definition →

Middle English pit ← Old English pytt ← Proto-West Germanic *puti
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pit · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-West Germanic*puti
  2. Old Englishpytt
  3. Middle Englishpit
  4. English todaypit

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.

pit · noun, verb2

  1. Proto-Germanic · derived from*piþō
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*pittan
  3. Middle Dutch · derived frompitte
  4. Dutch · borrowed frompit“kernel, core”
  5. English todaypit

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.

pit · noun3

Shortening.

pit · verb4

From PIT maneuver.

Words from the same roots

Proto-West Germanic*puti all →

Poth

Proto-Germanic*piþō all →

pith

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.