Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An unapparent source of trouble or danger; a hidden hazard.
- noun A concealed hole in the ground that serves as a trap.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To lead into a pitfall; insnare.
- noun A pit into which an animal may fall unawares, the opening being so covered as to escape observation.
- noun Hence Figuratively, any concealed danger or source of disaster.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A pit deceitfully covered to entrap wild beasts or men; a trap of any kind.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a potential
problem ,hazard , ordanger that is easily encountered but not immediately obvious. - noun computing An
anti-pattern .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a trap in the form of a concealed hole
- noun an unforeseen or unexpected or surprising difficulty
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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One does have to be obsessive with the little pieces and the instructions - my biggest pitfall is that I have a pretty good sense of how things fit together and I get cocky.
No more modular furniture, ever! A photo essay in real time 2009
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And the piece about avoiding the not doing something pitfall is the kind of thing that I can stand to hear many times, so thanks for that.
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The only possible pitfall is complacency -- but the prospect of competing for a national title for the first time should cure that.
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That's probably the main pitfall of the car insurance analogy.
Reality and Health Care Spending, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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The pitfall is that if some story aspect is already working, stretching can create distortion: characters that pass edgy and go straight to unnatural or unsympathetic, conflicts that no longer fit the tone or intent of the story, etc …
Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » Weapons of Mass Instruction 2006
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Of course, a pitfall is the caveat that the instructor needs to be a competent one.
Pharyngula 2009
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Another pitfall is the urge to state the obvious: No one, Gladwell concludes in a chapter comparing a high-IQ failure named Chris Langan with the brilliantly successful J. Robert Oppenheimer, not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires and not even geniuses-ever makes it alone.
Daring Fireball 2008
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Bush's ads mirror his general-market spots, a potential "pitfall," says Machado.
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The same kind of pitfall will always lie ahead of you, Chris; that, too, is an aspect of the job.
Cities In Flight Blish, James 1957
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Animism is, as already explained, a pitfall which is always yawning before us and into which we are sure to plunge unless we are ever watchful.
The Mind in the Making The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform James Harvey Robinson 1899
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