hitchhike
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hitchhike
Explanation
To hitchhike is to get a free ride from a passing car. If you see someone standing alongside the highway raising a thumb, chances are that person is hitchhiking, not just expressing approval of your driving style. In the past, it wasn't unheard of for people to hitchhike across the country, but it's much less common today. If you hitchhike, you typically stand beside a road or highway with one thumb pointed up. The hope for a hitchhiker is that a car will stop and its driver will provide a free ride. While for many people, hitchhiking was once considered a reasonable way to travel, today it's illegal in some places and generally thought of as dangerous. The word hitchhike dates from the 1920s.
Vocabulary lists containing hitchhike
"Hitching a Ride"
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From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
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Miracle's Boys
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The pest has shown a remarkable ability to spread quickly and hitchhike, with dead specimens being found as close as Oregon and California.
From Seattle Times • Dec. 7, 2023
While diving, he saw a shark with a remora—a fish which uses suction to hitchhike on larger species—attached to its body, and he had an idea.
From National Geographic • Oct. 23, 2023
Horsehair worms are born in water and use aquatic insects like mayflies to hitchhike to dry land, where they sit tight until they are eaten by terrestrial insects such as crickets or mantises.
From Science Daily • Oct. 19, 2023
Police believed she had tried to hitchhike her way home.
From BBC • May 14, 2023
Young animals disperse by walking or flying, but plants don’t have that option, so they must somehow hitchhike.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
