PIT (O. E. pytt, cognate with Du. put, Ger. Pfutze, &c., all ultimately adaptations of Lat. puteus, well, formed from root pu-, to cleanse, whence gurus, clean, pure)

This article appears in Volume V21, Page 659 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PIG-POL

PIT (O. E. pytt, cognate with Du. put, Ger. Pfutze, &c., all ultimately adaptations of Lat. puteus, well, formed from root pu-, to cleanse, whence gurus, clean, pure) , a

term

TERM

of wide application for a hole, cavity or excavation in the earth or othersurface; thus it is applied to the excavations made in the ground for the purpose of extracting minerals, e.g. chalk,

gravel

GRAVEL, or PEBBLE BEDS

or sand, or for carrying on some industry, e.g. tan-pit, saw-pit, or to the group of shafts which form a coal-mine. Roots and other vegetables can be stored in the winter in a pit, and the

term

TERM

is thus transformed to a heap of such vegetables covered with earth or straw. The word is also used of any hollow or depression in a surface, as in the

body

BODY

, the arm-pit, the pit of the stomach, or on the skin, as the scars left by small-pox or chicken-pox. As applied to a portion of a building or construction, the word first appears for an enclosure, often sunk in the ground, in which cock-fighting was carried on, a " cock-pit." It would seem a transference of this usage that gave the common name to that part of the auditorium of a theatre which is on the floor, the French parterre. In the United States a

special

SPECIAL

usage is that of its application to that part of the floor space in an exchange where a particular branch of business is transacted; thus in the Chicago Board of

Trade

, transactions in the

grain

GRAIN (derived through the French from Lat. granum, seed, from an Aryan root meaning " to wear down," which also appears in the common Teutonic word " corn ")

trade

are carried on in what is known as the " Wheat Pit."
In Scottish legal history there was a baronial privilege which in Latin is termed furca et fossa, "

fork

FORK (Lat. furca)

(i.e. gallows) and pit "; here the term has usually been taken to refer to the drowning-pit, in which women criminals were put to death; others take it to refer to an

ordeal

ORDEAL (O.Eng. ordal, ordael, judgment)

pit. There is a parallel phrase in M. Dutch, putte ends galghen; here putte is the pit in which women were buried alive as a penalty.

End of Article: PIT (O. E. pytt, cognate with Du. put, Ger. Pfutze, &c., all ultimately adaptations of Lat. puteus, well, formed from root pu-, to cleanse, whence gurus, clean, pure)

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