Pitch Dark

Also:

Pitch black
Black as pitch
Pitch darkness
Pitch blackness
Black as coal (rare)

Meaning of Idiom ‘Pitch Dark’

All variations are more commonly used to describe darkness.

Examples Of Use

“I didn’t like camping. Being from the city, I found it hard to sleep in the pitch dark woods.”

“The cloud cover made the night as black as pitch.”

“I don’t like sleeping in a pitch black room. I prefer a little light.”

Origin

The idiom is an allusion to the black color of pitch, which is a thick bituminous substance such as that derived from coal tar and used to waterproof ships.

Pitch has been used to describe total darkness since ancient times and appears in Homer’s Illiad. The rarely heard variation ‘black as coal’ is almost as old. Oddly, although most people have never encountered pitch and may not know what it refers to in this idiom, the adjective has survived while others, such as black as ink or black as a raven, have fallen into disuse. (Source)

More Idioms Starting with P

• Page-Turner
• Play Hardball
• Pain in the Neck, a
• Par For the Course
• Peter Out

More Black Idioms

• In the Black
• Pot Calling the Kettle Black
• Black Out
• Black and Blue
• Give Someone A Black Eye

More Dark Idioms

• Shot in the Dark
• In the Dark
• Dark Horse Idiom

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