What's the difference between pit and pity?

Pit


Definition:

  • (n.) A large cavity or hole in the ground, either natural or artificial; a cavity in the surface of a body; an indentation
  • (n.) The shaft of a coal mine; a coal pit.
  • (n.) A large hole in the ground from which material is dug or quarried; as, a stone pit; a gravel pit; or in which material is made by burning; as, a lime pit; a charcoal pit.
  • (n.) A vat sunk in the ground; as, a tan pit.
  • (n.) Any abyss; especially, the grave, or hades.
  • (n.) A covered deep hole for entrapping wild beasts; a pitfall; hence, a trap; a snare. Also used figuratively.
  • (n.) A depression or hollow in the surface of the human body
  • (n.) The hollow place under the shoulder or arm; the axilla, or armpit.
  • (n.) See Pit of the stomach (below).
  • (n.) The indentation or mark left by a pustule, as in smallpox.
  • (n.) Formerly, that part of a theater, on the floor of the house, below the level of the stage and behind the orchestra; now, in England, commonly the part behind the stalls; in the United States, the parquet; also, the occupants of such a part of a theater.
  • (n.) An inclosed area into which gamecocks, dogs, and other animals are brought to fight, or where dogs are trained to kill rats.
  • (n.) The endocarp of a drupe, and its contained seed or seeds; a stone; as, a peach pit; a cherry pit, etc.
  • (n.) A depression or thin spot in the wall of a duct.
  • (v. t.) To place or put into a pit or hole.
  • (v. t.) To mark with little hollows, as by various pustules; as, a face pitted by smallpox.
  • (v. t.) To introduce as an antagonist; to set forward for or in a contest; as, to pit one dog against another.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When compared with nonspecialized regions of the cell membranes, these contact sites were characterized by a decreased intercellular distance, subplasmalemmal densities and coated pits.
  • (2) Interaction of viable macrophages with cationic particles at 37 degrees C resulted in their "internalization" within vesicles and coated pits and a closer apposition between many segments of plasmalemma than with neutral or anionic substances.
  • (3) Both types of oral cleft, cleft palate (CP) and cleft lip with or without CP (CLP), segregate in these families together with lower lip pits or fistulae in an autosomal dominant mode with high penetrance estimated to be K = .89 and .99 by different methods.
  • (4) The potential use of ancrod, a purified isolate from the venom of the Malaysian pit viper, Agkistrodon rhodostoma, in decreasing the frequency of cyclic flow variations in severely stenosed canine coronary arteries and causing thrombolysis of an acute coronary thrombus induced by a copper coil was evaluated.
  • (5) On land, the pits' stagnant pools of water become breeding grounds for dengue fever and malaria.
  • (6) Demonstration of low levels of Pit-1 expression in Ames dwarf (df) mice implies that both Pit-1 and df expression may be required for pituitary differentiation.
  • (7) At 4 degrees C or after fixation, anti-renal tubular brush border vesicle (BBV) IgG bound diffusely to the surface of GEC and to coated pits.
  • (8) A cell with a large Golgi apparatus and associated cytoplasmic granules resembles the pit cell described in the liver of a few other vertebrates.
  • (9) Pitting corrosion was seen on low-resistant Ni-Cr alloys, which had less Cr content.
  • (10) This brings lads like 12-year-old Matthew Mason down from the magnificent studio his father Mark, from a coal-mining town ravaged by pit closures, lovingly built him in the back garden at Gants Hill, north-east London.
  • (11) Stonehenge stood at the heart of a sprawling landscape of chapels, burial mounds, massive pits and ritual shrines, according to an unprecedented survey of the ancient grounds.
  • (12) Freeze fracture analysis confirmed the integrity of the tight junctions as well as increased numbers of vesicles or pits along the lateral cell membrane, indicating increased endocytotic activity.
  • (13) Likewise, the cost of emptying these pits can be high.
  • (14) Bifid uvula, preauricular pits, and abnormal palmar creases were also slightly more common in the patients, but the differences were not statistically significant.
  • (15) Hypertrophic fibrous astrocytes were common in chronic active lesions, were capable of myelin degradation and on occasion, contained myelin debris attached to clathrin-coated pits.
  • (16) A mother and daughter both presented at age 5 years with the triad of right-sided congenital cholesteatoma, right preauricular pits, and bilateral sensorineural hearing loss.
  • (17) In addition, the perfusion method in this experiment suggested the possibility of distinguishing pinocytotic vesicles from pits of cell membranes.
  • (18) Performance pay pitting teachers against each other just does not work - we are not in favour of that,” Merlino said.
  • (19) Both larval stages had an inner circle of 6 labial papillae, an outer circle of 6 labial papillae and 4 somatic papillae, and lateral amphidial pits.
  • (20) The country’s other attractions include a burning pit at “the door to hell” in the Darvaza crater, and rarely seen stretches of the silk road, the region’s ancient trade route.

Pity


Definition:

  • (n.) Piety.
  • (n.) A feeling for the sufferings or distresses of another or others; sympathy with the grief or misery of another; compassion; fellow-feeling; commiseration.
  • (n.) A reason or cause of pity, grief, or regret; a thing to be regretted.
  • (v. t.) To feel pity or compassion for; to have sympathy with; to compassionate; to commiserate; to have tender feelings toward (any one), awakened by a knowledge of suffering.
  • (v. t.) To move to pity; -- used impersonally.
  • (v. i.) To be compassionate; to show pity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The voters don’t do gratitude, self-pitying politicians are wont to moan.
  • (2) With grievous amazement, never self-pitying but sometimes bordering on a sort of numbed wonderment, Levi records the day-to-day personal and social history of the camp, noting not only the fine gradations of his own descent, but the capacity of some prisoners to cut a deal and strike a bargain, while others, destined by their age or character for the gas ovens, follow "the slope down to the bottom, like streams that run down to the sea".
  • (3) "); hopeless self-pity ("Nobody said anything to me about Billy ... all day long") and rage ("You want to put a bench in the park in Billy's name?
  • (4) Indeed, mainstream economics is a pitifully thin distillation of historical wisdom on the topics that it addresses.
  • (5) Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?” It is there to remind him that the dots are worth fighting for.
  • (6) Last year, Amnesty International described the world’s response as “pitiful” and earlier this week, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants called on the EU to deliver a proper resettlement programme.
  • (7) April's family had to endure the "spectacle of your hypocritical sympathy for their loss and of your tears", the judge told Bridger, saying any tears were motivated purely by self-pity.
  • (8) And this is the mainspring of so many of his stories, novellas, and his one novel, Beware of Pity : the clash between propriety and desire.
  • (9) It’s actually a pity that there’s now a break because I wanted to continue playing games,” said the Italian.
  • (10) In his final fight, against the journeyman boxer Kevin McBride, he was a pitiful figure - slumped in a corner, legs splayed, unable or unwilling to stand himself up.
  • (11) Other negative emotions – self-pity, guilt, apathy, pessimism, narcissism – make it a deeply unattractive illness to be around, one that requires unusual levels of understanding and tolerance from family and friends.
  • (12) He said it was a “pity” that the UK prime minister “wasn’t able to express the British position at the press conference with Donald Trump standing next to her”.
  • (13) As the turbulent commercial radio sector enters another new phase, Park wants to sweep away the thinking that has left too many of his colleagues wallowing in self-pity, and turn his fire on a familiar target.
  • (14) Broadly defined, this sort of behaviour involves procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, obstructionism, self-pity and a tendency to create chaotic situations.
  • (15) It is a pity we did not take our chances,” the Ukraine coach, Mykhailo Fomenko, said.
  • (16) "This depressing morning has now got me questioning my pitiful existence," sobs James Dodge.
  • (17) Foreign dignitaries were invited to attend for the first time and it is a pity that from Europe only Javier Solana chose to take the offer up.
  • (18) Men convicted of rape are often pitied in the media and, like Evans, quickly vault back to positions of fame .
  • (19) But after the strange denials that this old, sick man is dying I want to talk not with pity but of his power.
  • (20) Staff here dread the welfare reform bill, waiting for debts, arrears, evictions and pitiful hardship to wash up on their doorstep.