Word.ws English Dictionary

pit stop

/ˈpɪt.stɑp/

pit stop noun: a stop made during an automobile race at the pit to refuel and perform other periodic maintenance on the vehicle.

pit stop: a stop made during an automobile race at the pit to refuel and perform other periodic maintenance...
Image: Eagle Shooter at flickr, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pit stop (plural pit stops)

  1. A stop made during an automobile race at the pit to refuel and perform other periodic maintenance on the vehicle.
    • Alonso and Ferrari may well privately regret the decision to delay their second pit stop until two laps after Maldonado made his on the 24th of 66 laps.2012 May 13, Andrew Benson, “Williams's Pastor Maldonado takes landmark Spanish Grand Prix win”, in BBC Sport
  2. (informal) A brief stop for fuel, rest or refreshment during an automobile journey.
    • I had to make a couple of pit stops along the way from Cadiz to Santiago de Compostela to give myself a break.
  3. (informal) A stop during any pedestrian or automobile travel for any utilitarian personal purpose, especially use of a bathroom.
  4. (informal) A place that offers food, beverages, and other goods and services for those stopping on an automobile journey.
  5. (figuratively, informal) A utilitarian stop on a figurative journey.

Forms of pit stop

pluralpit stops
alternative formpitstop
alternative formpit-stop

Origin of pit stop

From pit + stop. First use appears c. 1915.

Words formed from pit stop

Questions about pit stop

What does pit stop mean?
Pit stop means a stop made during an automobile race at the pit to refuel and perform other periodic maintenance on the vehicle.
What part of speech is pit stop?
Pit stop is a noun.
How do you pronounce pit stop?
Pit stop is pronounced /ˈpɪt.stɑp/ (US).
What is the plural of pit stop?
The plural of pit stop is pit stops.

Words near pit stop in the dictionary

  1. pit pony
  2. pit prop
  3. pit props
  4. Pit River language
  5. pit saw
  6. pit stop
  7. pit stops
  8. pit straight
  9. pit straights
  10. pit toilet
  11. pit toilets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pit stop (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-pit stop.wav.

Cite this entry: “pit stop.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pit_stop. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.