DCHP-1 Online

pitch-hole

• 1 n. Ont. and Que. one of a series of depressions and ridges caused by impacted snow on a winter road, a source of much jolting and bouncing to passengers in sleighs, carioles, etc.

  See also: cahot  

  • 1902  . . . the deep snow packed hard into a smooth track . . . except where here and there pitch-holes or cahots came.
  • 1924  He is not over-considerate, is the road-master; he puts you to no end of trouble for a trifle of a drift; and there are pitch-holes opposite his own place, too.
  • 1946  The Canadian peasants used a short one-horse sleigh that pounded and made pitch-holes--cahots--in the winter roads. The English began to object to this practice, but the more they tried to get the French to change, the larger the pitch-holes became.

• 2 n. a deep pothole (def. 2a) (especially in a road or trail) that causes a vehicle to pitch and toss.

  See also: pothole (def. 2a)  

  • 1936  So Charlie's horses jogged on with us along a road that was three feet above the normal altitude . . . and into pitch holes that jarred one's innards terribly.
  • 1957  . . . one looks back to the horse-drawn cutter of yesteryear . . . as we drove through the numerous pitch holes which formed between McMichael's Hill and the city limits. . . .
  • 1962  . . . all must be loaded skillfully so as not to slide or roll off as the cat train rocks and plunges over the hummocks and pitch holes in the ice and snow roads.