# pitcher
## English
### Pronunciation

* (General American) IPA: /ˈpɪt͡ʃ.ɚ/, [ˈpɪʔt͡ʃɚ]
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈpɪtʃ.ə/, [ˈpɪʔt͡ʃə]
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪtʃə(ɹ)
* Homophone: picture (regional)
* Hyphenation: pit‧cher

### Etymology 1

From pitch +‎ -er.

#### Noun

pitcher (plural pitchers)
* One who pitches (in any sense) anything
    a tent pitcher
    a pitcher of ideas
    a quoits pitcher
* (baseball, softball) The player who delivers the ball to the batter.
** 2003, John E. Peterson, The Kansas City Athletics: A Baseball History: 1954–1967, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 210:A “pitchometer” was installed on the scoreboard to time the pitchers. According the baseball rules a pitcher had to throw a pitch within 20 seconds after he received the ball from the catcher when there was nobody on base.
* (slang) A drug dealer.
** 2000, Michael Massing, The Fix, page 67:To the residents of Spanish Harlem, these pitchers embodied the drug trade at its most sinister; they were the dealers and pushers who were destroying their neighborhood.
* (obsolete, UK, slang) One who puts counterfeit money into circulation.
    Synonym: snide pitcher
** 1863, Blanchard Jerrold, Signals of Distress in Refuges and Homes of Charity (etc.), page 2:To discover […] how the honest poor are compelled to hob-and-nob with the “shoful pitcher” and the “gun,” it is necessary to visit the vast nursery-grounds of crime.
* (chiefly US, colloquial) The top partner in a homosexual relationship or penetrator in a sexual encounter between two men.
    Synonym: top
* (obsolete) A sort of crowbar for digging.
* One who makes a pitch or proposal.
    The pitcher of the new film stands to earn millions.
* (obsolete, UK, slang) A person who sells anything in the streets.

##### Derived terms

* fly-pitcher
* relief pitcher
* starting pitcher
* switch pitcher

##### Further reading

* pitcher on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

### Etymology 2

From Middle English picher, from Old French pichier, pechier (“small jug”), bichier (compare modern French pichet), from Late Latin or Medieval Latin pīcārium, alteration of bīcārium, itself possibly from bacarium, bacar or from Ancient Greek βῖκος (bîkos). Doublet of beaker.

#### Noun

pitcher (plural pitchers)
* A wide-mouthed, deep vessel for holding liquids, with a spout or protruding lip and a handle; a water jug or jar with a large ear or handle.
** 1846, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The New Adam and Eve”, in Mosses from an Old Manse:At length, in a refrigerator, Eve finds a glass pitcher of water, pure, cold, and bright as ever gushed from a fountain among the hills.
* (botany) A tubular or cuplike appendage or expansion of the leaves of certain plants. See pitcher plant.

##### Derived terms

* Charley-pitcher
* little pitcher
* little pitchers have big ears
* pitcher-bawd
* pitcherful
* pitcher plant
* pitcher sage
* rinse-pitcher
* the pitcher goes so often to the well that it is broken at last

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### See also

* flagon

#### Further reading

* Pitcher (container) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

### Etymology 3
#### Noun

pitcher (plural pitchers)
* Pronunciation spelling of picture, representing dialectal English.
** 1934, William Byron Mowery, Challenge of the North:She's purtier'n uh pitcher, son, but what in th' name o' thunderin' snakes c'n you do with 'er in this here country?
** 2015, Stephen Gresham, Rockabye Baby:Nineteen sixty-nine, shore as hell, Clay Lawrence —that magazine had uh pitcher of ya—was uh All-American defensive back at the University of Missouri.

##### Derived terms

* moom pitcher

### References

* ↑ “pitcher”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

### Anagrams

* Petrich, priceth, repitch

## Gallo
### Etymology

From Old French piquer (“to pierce with the tip of a sword”), from Vulgar Latin pīccare (“to sting, strike”), from Frankish *pikkōn.

### Verb

pitcher
* to prick

## Spanish
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English pitcher.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈpit͡ʃeɾ/ [ˈpi.t͡ʃeɾ]
* Rhymes: -itʃeɾ

### Noun

pitcher m (plural pitchers)
* Alternative spelling of pícher

#### Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.