pitfall

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“
Of course, a pitfall is the caveat that the instructor needs to be a competent one.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun An unapparent source of trouble or danger; a hidden hazard: "potential pitfalls stemming from their optimistic inflation assumptions” (New York Times).
  2. noun A concealed hole in the ground that serves as a trap.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • The hesitant words were on the tip of his tongue when he saw the pitfall, and as it opened beneath his feet he experienced for the first time that deep anger which altered him so and changed him from the affable universal uncle to the man with an intolerable personal affront to avenge. —  The Fashion in Shrouds - Margery Allingham - Campion 10
  • This pitfall is caused by users attempting to use the exec () method to accept a single String as a command line would. —  LinuxQuestions.org
  • Another pitfall is exposing product to inappropriate heating, which can cause melting and most likely an inability to reconstitute the product to its correct form. —  GEN News Highlights
  • Little-idiots pitfall: remember what has been said about mixing different compiler versions? —  Internet Super Hero
  • A common pitfall are "error while loading shared libraries: abc. so.1" error messages when trying to run the newly compiled binary. —  Planet MySQL
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This word has been looked up 46 times.

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

obstacle ·  dilemma ·  drawback ·  peril ·  ambiguity ·  chasm ·  complication ·  hazard ·  entanglement ·  trap ·  temptation ·  impediment

Used in the same contextWord Family

pitfall:   pitfalls
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English pitfalle, putfalle, pytfalle; from pit + fall. Cf. pitfold.
  2. from pitfall, n.
 

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/ˈpɪtfɔl/
by American Heritage

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