hitchhike
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
hitchhikesimple
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hitchhikessimple
-
have hitchhikedperfect
-
has hitchhikedperfect
-
am hitchhikingprogressive
-
are hitchhikingprogressive
-
is hitchhikingprogressive
-
have been hitchhikingperfect progressive
-
has been hitchhikingperfect progressive
Past
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hitchhikedsimple
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had hitchhikedperfect
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was hitchhikingprogressive
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were hitchhikingprogressive
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had been hitchhikingperfect progressive
Future
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.
See Examples For:
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
The event's organisers arranged for buses to take people from the road to the nearby city of Reno - but some people say they had to pay for rides or hitchhike out of the area.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2023
Whenever it broke down we’d catch minibuses, or sometimes we’d hitchhike.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
It clearly hitchhikes on small liquid particles sprayed out by an infected person.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 26, 2020
A determined woman hitchhikes with a widower and his 12-year-old daughter to reach her wedding on Christmas Eve.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2019
He hitchhikes to distant factories, drops off job applications and is summarily jeered at for his shabby clothes and poor hygiene.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2019
And I did not love “Homeward Bound,” last week’s episode where Hannah dumps Fran, jumps on Ray, and eventually hitchhikes back to New York.
From New York Times ● Apr. 17, 2016
He wants a ride somewhere and all the nearby Ubers are booked; he ingeniously hitchhikes with a Papa John’s deliveryman.
From Slate ● Apr. 30, 2015
Mrs Sanchez said: "I can look back and laugh now that we hitchhiked to our wedding!"
From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2026
We hitchhiked into town on the truck that came to pick up the donations.
From Salon ● Feb. 15, 2026
Napoletano told detectives she stumbled away without being caught, made her way to the road, and hitchhiked back to Placerville with a guy she knew only as “Joe.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2024
As Jewison was ending his military service in the Canadian navy during World War II, he hitchhiked through the American South and had a close-up view of Jim Crow segregation.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 22, 2024
Together, with rolled-up towels under their arms, they hitchhiked into town from the KOA Kampground and caught another ride for several miles on the eastbound highway into Alamito.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
But for Dreesen, this meant sleeping in a Nash Rambler, a broken-down car that was up on blocks, and hitchhiking up and down Sunset Boulevard hoping to get a five-minute set at the Comedy Store.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
“Down South” chronicles a hitchhiking trip on which Mr. McCartney and George Harrison bonded over guitars and rock ’n’ roll.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
Later, on the country rock-tinged Down South, he writes about hitchhiking across Europe with his bandmates in the early 1960s.
From BBC ● May 27, 2026
That abomination pops out of an unsettlingly cheerful woman whose husband swoops in to offer the hitchhiking boy a ride.
From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2025
On August 10, shortly before meeting Jan Burres and Bob, McCandless had been ticketed for hitchhiking near Willow Creek, in the gold-mining country east of Eureka.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
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.
