pitched battle, a

1. An intense conflict, as in Their disagreement turned into a pitched battle between the nurses and the physicians' assistants. This term, dating from about 1600, originally alluded to a military battle in which the array of forces and battleground are predetermined (as opposed to a hasty skirmish).

Example Sentences

Amelia had been raised to believe that existence was a pitched battle, a series of challenges to be brooked.

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By midafternoon east of Gaza City on Monday, the scene at the fence resembled a pitched battle — a chaotic panorama of black smoke, wailing sirens, streams of tear gas and recurring gunfire.

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"You cannot say this is the Maoists, or the parties," says Bodriganal as we watch another pitched battle a street away, where police and demonstrators hurl bricks at each other over a barricade of burning tires.

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As Lieutenant Summers had explained to the boys, even in pitched battle a good deal of powder and shot was spent often without anybody being injured.

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So, before they had gone any great distance toward the sounds of firing, which had now increased to a point that showed that they were in the neighborhood of something very like a pitched battle, a general engagement, they slowed down to a walk and waited to see what would happen.

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