pit and pitt are homophones: they are pronounced identically and spelled differently, which is why they are so often swapped. pit means “a sizeable hole (usually in the ground)”. pitt means “a British playwright who created the fictional character Sweeney Todd (1799-1855)”. pit is the more common of the two in everyday English.
/ˈpɪt/
1.n.a sizeable hole (usually in the ground)
“they dug a pit to bury the body”
2.n.a concavity in a surface (especially an anatomical depression)
3.n.the hard inner (usually woody) layer of the pericarp of some fruits (as peaches or plums or cherries or olives) that contains the seed
“you should remove the stones from prunes before cooking”
/ˈpɪt/
| pit | pitt | |
|---|---|---|
| Pronunciation | /ˈpɪt/ | /ˈpɪt/ |
| Said | pit | pit |
| Syllables | 1 | 1 |
| Letters | 3 | 4 |
| Parts of speech | noun, verb | noun |
| Senses | 14 | 3 |
| How common | Common | Familiar |
| Synonyms | cavity | George Pitt, George Dibdin Pitt, George Dibdin-Pitt |
1.n.a British playwright who created the fictional character Sweeney Todd (1799-1855)
2.n.English statesman and son of Pitt the Elder (1759-1806)
3.n.English statesman who brought the Seven Years' War to an end (1708-1778)