Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A metal spike fitted at one end with an eye for securing a rope and driven into rock or ice as a support in mountain climbing.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A point; a peak.
Wiktionary
- n. a spike, wedge, or peg that is driven into a rock or ice surface as a support (as for a mountain climber)
- v. climbing to put pitons into a rock/ice to facilitate climbing
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Mountain Climbing) A metal spike having a sharpened point on one end, and a hole through which a rope can be passed on the other; it is driven into the face of a rock cliff during climbing, and used as an anchor point for a rope.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a metal spike with a hole for a rope; mountaineers drive it into ice or rock to use as a hold
Etymologies
- French piton ("nail") (Wiktionary)
- French, from Old French, nail. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Trailing behind the piton was a microthin line of duranium cable.”
“Grias neuberthii, known as the piton tree, is a large tree native to the western Amazonian rainforest (Ecuador, Columbia and Peru).”
“Soon after the school opened, I signed up and learned how to belay and rappel, and about the play of rock climbing on the senses: the clink of the hammer on a piton, the warmth of the sunlit granite under my hand, the radiant clouds sailing overhead.”
“Créez votre badge welcome beggining on blog, feel free to give comments about me lilasvb piton saint leu, reunion, Reunion je suis chorégraphe, auteure, dessinatrice amateure, en transition d'une ile à l'autre, j'expérimente l'asthanga yoga comme base matinale pour passer de meilleures journées....”
“Rock-climbing legend has it that celebrated conservationist David Brower installed the first permanent piton in North America.”
“I use my ice ax to hammer in a piton now and again but much of this is done by other leaders before me.”
And then the Psychology Student asked me: "What is your life construct?"
“Pepper let go, stopped his fall by grabbing another piton, then dropped into the aft of the boat in one smooth, quick motion.”
“He moved over and grabbed a rusty piton hammered into the side of a great pillar, one of many that allowed the scavengers below him to string nets to strain the harbor water.”
“Each finger is a piton, and programmed to seek out crevices on the rock-face you are climbing.”
“The flattened dome is from fifty to sixty feet high, and the piton one hundred and forty.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘piton’.
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 351 more...
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Climbing lingo
Lingo that immediately classifies you as a climbing insider
crimp, gaston, beta, sherpa, Bonnington, Chouinard, The Gunks, hexentrics, The Dru, Black Ice Culoir, Fitzroy, Black Diamond Equ... and 38 more...
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The Pits
armpit, pit, pits, cockpit, pity, pithy, pit bull terrier, pit boss, pit stop, pitcher, fire pit, peach pit and 76 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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Damieng's Words
lupine, sapor, boz imp, imp, ovine, saracen, haberdashery, tiebar, shill, cutler, cutaway, lucite and 218 more...
Tweets
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