Pit (pronounced pit)
(1) A naturally formed or excavated hole or cavity in the
ground.
(2) A covered or concealed excavation in the ground,
serving as a trap for animals.
(3) In extractive mining, an excavation made in exploring
for or removing a mineral deposit (also known (at scale) as “open-cut” as
opposed to “underground” (although in casual use sometime used also of the
mineshafts used in underground operations.
It can in mining slang also refer to an entire mine site, regardless of
the mode of extraction.
(4) The stone of a fruit (cherry, peach, plum etc) and
technically, the hard, inner layer (the endocarp) of certain drupes.
(5) The abode of evil spirits and lost souls; hell; the
depths of Hades.
(6) In slang (as “the pits”) an extremely unpleasant,
boring, or depressing place, condition, person, etc; the absolute worst (used
also as a clipping of armpits).
(7) A hollow or indentation in a surface (in substances
like glass or when referring to surfaces (paint, varnish etc), treated usually
as an imperfection).
(8) In physiology, natural hollow or depression in the
body, organ, structure or part; fossa (used most often of the small of the
back).
(9) In medicine, a small, indented scar, as one of at the
site of a former pustule after smallpox, chicken pox or similar diseases; a pockmark.
(10) In music, a section of the marching band containing
mallet percussion instruments and other large percussion instruments too large
to march, such as the tam tam; the area on the side-lines where these
instruments are placed.
(11) In botany, any of various small areas in a plant
cell wall that remain un-thickened when the rest of the cell becomes lignified
(used especially of the vascular tissue).
(12) In archaeology, a hole or trench in the ground,
excavated according to grid coordinates, so that the provenance of any feature
observed and any specimen or artefact revealed may be established by precise
measurement.
(13) An enclosure, usually below the level of the
spectators, as for staging fights between dogs, cocks, or, formerly, bears (as
cockpit later extended to aircraft, cars, boats etc).
(14) In physical markets (such as a commodity exchange),
a part of the floor of the exchange where trading is conducted (known in some
places as “as open outcry pits” because transactions were done by traders
shouting offers & acceptances at each other).
(15) In architecture, all that part of the main floor of
a theatre behind the musicians (in UK use also the main floor of a theatre behind the stalls); sometimes used as “orchestra pit” (the area that is
occupied by the orchestra in a theatre, located in front of the stage)
(16) In a hoist-way, a space below the level of the
lowest floor served.
(17) In motorsport, an area at the side of a track, for
servicing and refueling the cars (the use later adopted by cycle racing).
(18) In ten-pin bowling, the sunken area of a bowling
alley behind the pins, for the placement or recovery of pins that have been
knocked down.
(19) In track athletics, the area forward of the take-off point in a
jumping event, as the broad jump or pole vault, that is filled with sawdust or
soft earth to lessen the force of the jumper's landing.
(20) In casinos, the area or room containing gambling
tables.
(21) In aviation, the part of the aircraft (usually the
bottom of the fuselage) given over to freight; a luggage hold.
(22) In American football, the centre of the line.
(23) In hospital slang, the emergency department.
(24) Literally, the bottom part (lowest point) of
something; figuratively an undesirable location (especially if dirty, dangerous
etc).
(25) In military slang, a bed (some evidence also of
civilian (presumably ex-military) use).
(26) In nuclear physics, the core of an implosion nuclear
weapon, consisting of the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper
bonded to it.
(27) To mark or indent with pits or depressions.
(28) In medicine, to scar with pockmarks.
(29) In physiology (of body tissue) temporarily to retain
a mark of pressure, as by a finger, instrument, etc.
(30) To place or bury something in a pit, as for storage.
(31) To set in opposition or combat, as one against
another (usually in the forms “pit against” or “pitted against”).
(32) In motorsport, to exit from the track, entering the pits,
to permit the pit-crew to effect a pit-stop.
(33) To remove the stone of a fruit (cherry, peach, or
plum), sometimes with the use of a pitter (if something done vocationally, by a
pitter, usually with the use of a pitter).
Pre 900: From the Middle English noun pit, pittle, pite, pute, put & putte, from the Old English pytt (natural or man-made depression in
the ground, water hole, well; grave (the Kentish variation was “pet”), from the
Proto-West Germanic puti, from the Proto-Germanic
putt- (pool, puddle) which was the source
also of the Old Frisian pet, the Old
Saxon putti, the Old Norse pyttr, the Middle Dutch putte, the Dutch put, the Old High German pfuzza
and the German Pfütze (pool, puddle),
an early borrowing from Latin puteus (pit,
trench, shaft) (etymologists noting the phonetic difficulties which exist also
in the speculated relationship between puteus
and the primitive Indo-European root pau-
(to cut, strike, stamp). Because the short
u makes it unlikely puteus was from paviō (to strike), it might instead be
linked to putāre (to prune) but the
distance between the meanings makes etymologists just as sceptical and some
suggest puteus may be a loanword
though the spelling might be mysterious. The use in the context of stone fruit was an
Americanism dating from 1841, from the Dutch pet (kernel, seed, marrow), from the Middle Dutch pitte & pit (kernel, core (and cognate with pith)), from the Proto-Germanic
pittan (the dialectal German Pfitze (pimple) was an oblique of the
Proto-Germanic piþō), from the Proto-Germanic pithan- (source of pith). Like the use in other contexts, each instance
of the verb was derivative of the noun. Pit
is a noun & verb, pitter is a noun and pitted & pitting are verbs; the
noun plural is pits.
Ford GT40 pit-stop, Sebring 12 Hours, International Championship for Makes, Sebring, March 1966.
The meaning “abode of evil spirits, hell” dates from the
late twelfth century, one of the many means in the medieval world of referring
to hell. The meaning “very small
depression or dent in the surface of an object” was in use by the early 1400s,
the anatomical sense of “natural depression or hollow in some part of the body”
from more than a century earlier. The “pit
of the stomach” was in the literature by the 1650s and it was so-called from
the slight depression there between the ribs; the earlier terms used by doctors
were the late fourteenth century breast-pit and heart-pit from circa 1300. The meaning “part of a theatre on the floor
of the house, lower than the stage” was known by the 1640s while in market
trading, the sense of “that part of the floor of an exchange where business is
carried on” was first documented in 1903 as a coining in US English.
The phrase money-pit in the sense of “an edifice or project requiring constant outlay of cash with little to show for it” is quite modern, dating only from 1986 and assumed derived from the popular movie of the same name of the same name released that year (though it’s not impossible it had earlier been in regional use). The prior use had been in the 1930s when it was used of the shaft on Oak Island, Nova Scotia which legend suggested would lead one to treasure buried by Captain Kidd or some other pirate. Popular Mechanics magazine in September noted wryly the term might better refer to the millions spent trying to get the treasure out than the hoard of gold itself and in 2022, entrepreneurial engineer Elon Musk (b 1971) produced a variation, describing the factories in Europe building the electric Tesla cars as “money furnaces”. The ash-pit (repository for ashes, especially the lower part of a furnace) dates from 1797 and it replaced the earlier (1640s) ash-hole, reflecting the implications of industrialization as forges and furnaces grew larger. The venomous snake the pit-viper was so-named in 1872 because of the characteristic depression between the eyes and nose. In commercial forestry, the pit-saw was first described in the 1670s, referring to a large saw operated by two men, one (the pit-sawyer) standing in the pit below the log being sawed, the other (the top-sawyer) standing atop. Pitman was one of a wealth of vocationally-derived surnames which began to appear late in the twelfth century and it referred to one who dwelled literally “in or by a pit or hollow”, the use to describe someone who “works in a pit or mine” not documented until 1761. Pitman shorthand, a popular form of hand-written transcription of spoken-word text which could later be read by a typist (often the “shorthand-taker) came into use in the 1860s, having been devised by English teacher & publisher (and devoted vegetarian) Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897) in 1837. The phrase “flea-pit” dates from the 1920s and was used of cinemas, an allusion to the seats being infested with fleas or other bugs.
A Lindsay Lohan pit-stop from the blooper tape, Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).
The noun armpit was a mid-fourteenth century description
of the “hollow place under the shoulder” and it ran in parallel with the earlier
arm-hole although the latter use faded as it came to be used of clothing and as
an anatomical descriptor it was obsolete by the mid seventeenth century. There was also the early fifteenth century asselle, from the Old French asselle, from the Latin axilla but armpit prevailed. The colloquial phrase “armpit of the nation”
was used as a term of derision for any place thought ugly and disgusting and it’s
not clear when it emerged but it was well-documented from the early 1960s. The general term “the pits” was a variation
and from late in the twentieth century applied to anything or anyone thought
the worse possible of their type (ie based on something hairy, smelly and
ugly). Infamously, it was used by the US
tennis player John McEnroe (b 1959) who at Wimbledon in 1981 called an umpire “the pits of the world” during one of
their discussions. The noun pitter (curved
instrument for removing stones from cherries and other fruit” appeared in 1868
when pitters were made available as a commercial product (doubtlessly they had
for centuries been improvised or adapted from other utensils) and where they
were used vocationally, the user was also called a pitter, the same linguistic
process which produced the dual use of shucker in the oyster business (the
termed adopted also by others). Pit-a-pat
& pitter-pat, being imitative, are wholly unrelated and date from the
1520s, the noun emerging in 1580.
The original cockpits were first described in the 1580s
and were a “pit or enclosed space for fighting cocks”, the use soon extended to
any space in which animals were set to fight to the death, the audience betting
on the outcome. From this came the verb
use “to pit against” which meant “to put or set in or into a pit” and this soon
extended to boxing; by the eighteenth century in figurative use it was used on
any conflict, argument or rivalry. The
general verb use (make pits in; form a small pit or hollow) had been in used
(as pit, pitted & pitting) by the late fifteenth century. The dog breed pit-bull dates from 1922 and
was short for pit-bull terrier (first registered in 1912), a type noted for its
aggression a fighting abilities. Cockpit
was used of ships early in the eighteenth century of midshipmen's compartment
below decks and in some cases was later applied also to the enclosed cabins located
towards the centre of the deck began to replace the steerage systems at the stern
(later universally known as the “bridge”).
It was picked up for the pilot’s compartment in aircraft in 1914 and (by
extension) was used in racing cars in the 1930s. The word cesspit was created in the 1860s
because advances in plumbing meant something was needed to distinguish more
modern systems handling sewerage from the earlier cesspool, in use since the
1670s. The mid fourteenth century pitfall
(concealed hole into which a person or animal may fall unawares) was a description
of a physical danger which came into figurative in the early 1600s to refer to “any
hidden danger or concealed source of disaster.
In mining, a pitfall could also be literally a collapse of the internal
structure of a mineshaft, sometime because of the catastrophic failure of
pit-props (the timbers which provided the structural integrity of a shaft). Sometimes a mile or more deep, pitfalls
frequently were fatal and the death-toll among miners was high, the phrase “pit-hell”
often heard.
The original pits at the Indianapolis Speedway, 1913.
It was difficult and expensive (and often impossible) to lift heavy machinery to allow mechanics to work on engines or other components so, where possible, it was better to construct a pit underneath from which people could work. The concept was well documented in workshops by 1839 and the term was by 1912 picked up in motorsport to describe the “area at the side of a track where cars are serviced and repaired” and the early pits were often holes in the ground with waist-high surrounds in which the crew could stand. They were used also to store spare tyres, parts lubricants etc. As the sport boomed, the pits quickly became fully enclosed service areas and even garages, built along pit-lane. When a driver brought his car into the pits (located on the stretch of track called pit-straight), they were said to be pitting to be worked on by the pit crew who might during the pit-stop make repairs, re-fuel or change tyres, either in front of or behind the pit-wall. Pit crew became a popular term beyond the tracks, used of airline baggage handlers, sea-port staff etc.
The pit-babes from the era of (obvious) sponsorship by tobacco companies: Coming or going, they always looked good.
In motorsport, a pit-babe is an attractive young lady who is in the pits for some reason, not necessarily directly related to the competition. The companion term was Grid-Girl, equally attractive specimens with the role of (1) looking good and (2) appearing on the grid while the cars were assembled prior to the start, shielding the driver from the elements with a large umbrella, festooned with corporate logos. It was nice work if you could get it but the Grid-Girls are now rarely seen in Formula 1. In 2017, Liberty Media (owners of Formula 1) announced that with the coming of the 2018 season, the Grid-Girls would be replaced by “Grid-Kids” (boys and girls competing in junior and “entry level” categories such as karting, the explanation being the practice of using Grid-Girls was “not aligned with modern societal norms and F1's brand values.”) F1’s “brand values” are however underpinned by “dollar values” and in the years since, Grid-Girls (officially "promotional personnel") have sometimes been allowed to adorn the grid.
Comrade Grid-Girls, Hungarian Grand Prix, 1986.
Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977) once recalled his most pervasive memory of life behind the iron curtain being one of “dull grayness and the smell of boiled cabbage”. Clearly, old Henry didn’t get a pit pass to the 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix where things were bright and colourful. The 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix was notable because it was the first such event in the country for half a century and the first as a top-flight race, the 1936 Grand Prix not being part of the European championship and run under Formula Libre rules (there should be more Formula Libre events). Not in Hungry or anywhere else in 1936 were there pit-babes or Grid-Girls but on that sunny June day, a woman had been entered for the event, England’s Eileen Ellison (1910–1967) listed for the field driving a 3.0 litre, straight-8 Maserati 8CM. Unfortunately, there was what would now be called a “supply chain interruption” and her Maserati was a DNA (Did not Appear) so Ms Ellison appears in the race record as a DNS (Did not Start).
In 1936 it turned out to be a bad day for the Mercedes-Benz team, the W25 which had in 1934 been revolutionary now outclassed and all three were DNFs (Did not Finish), the race won by the mercurial Italian Tazio Nuvolari (1892–1953) in a 3.8 litre straight-8 Alfa Romeo 8C 35, entered by Scuderia Ferrari. Held in August as the eleventh race of the 1986 series, that year’s Hungarian Grand Prix was the first in the country since 1936 and the first Formula 1 World Championship (contested since 1950) race to be held behind the Iron Curtain; it was attended by some 200,000 spectators (drawn substantially from around the Eastern Bloc), a number not seen since the inter-war years and a mark not exceeded until the 1995 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. The race was won by Nelson Piquet (b 1952; Formula One Champion 1981, 1983 & 1987) in a Williams Honda FW11. The Hungarian Grand Prix returned to the record books in 2005 when the “XXI Marlboro Magyar Nagydij” became the last Grand Prix to be sponsored by a tobacco company, half the field running in the livery of the tobacco industry, West, Mild Seven, Lucky Strike, Malboro and Benson & Hedges all colourfully represented. With the EU’s (European Union (1993)), the multi-national aggregation which evolved from the EEC (European Economic Community), the Zollverein formed in 1957) ban of tobacco advertising coming into force on 31 July, 2005 (race day!), there ended over four decades of cigarette sponsorship in Formula 1, most teams keeping the livery until the last possible moment, the stickers appearing during qualifying and peeled off only shortly before the machines were wheeled to the starting grid (although Ferrari, Renault and Jordan rebelled and kept the logos without consequences). Of course, the EU’s law-change meant the pit-babes and Grid-Girls also got new outfits although cunningly, the designs often featured shapes and colors recalling the distinctive packaging used for cigarette cartons so the message got through, and ways were explored to find techniques so the cars could also continue as moving billboards.
