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Glite Dictionary
Pithole

Pithole

1 9.9
A former oil town in Pennsylvania that is now an empty ghost town
  • proper noun
  • /ˈpɪθoʊl/
: Pithole
  • In 1864, oil was found in Pithole, six miles east of Oil Creek.
  • Pithole Creek

Examples

  • Within a year, Pithole grew to be a city of 15,000 people.

    Academic text (2009)

  • In the 1860s, Pithole became known as the first boomtown of the oil industry.

  • By 1870, Pithole had dwindled to a ghost town with only 281 remaining residents.

  • At its peak, Pithole was a bustling city, rapidly growing to 15,000 residents within a year.

Surface Forms

Pithole main

Morphology

Pithole = pit + hole (opaque) = pit + hole

Although the name appears to contain the common words 'pit' and 'hole', the town name functions as a fixed proper noun whose meaning is not compositional for most learners.

Etymology

The word Pithole comes from the simple words pit and hole, which mean a 'deep hole' dug in the ground. The town was named for the pits dug to find oil in the 1800s, so Pithole became a booming oil town and later a ghost town.