hitchhike
Americanverb (used without object)
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hitchhikes,
present (3rd person singular)
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hitchhiked,
past participle, past
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hitchhiking
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
hitchhikes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hitchhiked,
past participle, past
-
hitchhiking
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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hitchhikesimple
-
hitchhikessimple
-
have hitchhikedperfect
-
has hitchhikedperfect
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am hitchhikingprogressive
-
are hitchhikingprogressive
-
is hitchhikingprogressive
-
have been hitchhikingperfect progressive
-
has been hitchhikingperfect progressive
Past
-
hitchhikedsimple
-
had hitchhikedperfect
-
was hitchhikingprogressive
-
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:
As a truck approaches, she attempts to hitchhike from the side of a desert road, only to strike out.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2025
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
We would hike to the gap if it killed us, and then try to hitchhike into Hiawassee for dinner and a night in a motel.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
The scientists hope their work will prompt Arctic communities to mull new ways to manage sewage and the trash that hitchhikes through it.
From New York Times ● Sep. 28, 2021
It clearly hitchhikes on small liquid particles sprayed out by an infected person.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 26, 2020
A New Jersey girl leaves her boyfriend and hitchhikes to Hollywood to become a star.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2020
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
Aside from that, she is a lesbian cheerleader who hitchhikes to New York and joins the rest of the gang.
From Slate ● Sep. 7, 2018
This generation, who as young adults hitchhiked across the country and backpacked through Europe, now is going on safaris and hiking in the Serengeti on guided tours that offer “easy” as well as “challenging” options.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
At age 17, he hitchhiked for nine hours from Ann Arbor, Mich., to New York City to see Davis at the Village Vanguard.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026
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
He had hitchhiked, and ridden on two buses, and walked, and reached Oxford at six in the evening, too late to do what he needed to do.
From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman
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
Four famous duos have travelled nearly 6,000 km, hitchhiking through mountain towns, foraging in dense jungles, and battling challenges they never imagined, as contestants in Celebrity Race Across the World.
From BBC ● Dec. 10, 2025
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
I decided I'd just see old Phoebe and sort of say good- by to her and all, and give her back her Christmas dough, and then I'd start hitchhiking my way out West.
From "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger
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.
