hitchhike
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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hitchhikesimple
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hitchhikessimple
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have hitchhikedperfect
-
has hitchhikedperfect
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am hitchhikingprogressive
-
are hitchhikingprogressive
-
is hitchhikingprogressive
-
have been hitchhikingperfect progressive
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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:
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
It took Paul Simon four days to hitchhike from Saginaw, or so he sang in America, his iconic soundscape ballad of the 1960s with its lost souls on the highways of a country in flux.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2024
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
He had got there by the following route: a row with his father, a hitchhike journey from Anchorage to Seattle, a visit to the recruiting offices of the Merchant Marine.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
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 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
RAQQA, Syria — Every three or four days, Fatima Mahmoud hitchhikes 37 miles across a hilly expanse of northeastern Syria to her home town of Raqqa.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 19, 2018
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
Once in the woods, Napoletano asked to be let out of the car to go to the bathroom, and hitchhiked back to Placerville.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2024
Dale Chorman grew up in Painesville, Ohio, but hitchhiked to Alaska in the 1980s, his son said in an email to the AP.
From Seattle Times ● May 21, 2024
Then he hitchhiked back, all the way from Mobile, Alabama.”
From "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen
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
The backpackers were picked up when hitchhiking on a long stretch of road between Sydney and Melbourne.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
Meanwhile, songs like “Down South” brim with nostalgia for days gone by — in this instance, memories of a hitchhiking jaunt with Harrison.
From Salon ● May 12, 2026
In college he spent summers hitchhiking around South America, hiking to Machu Picchu and mostly ignoring warnings of guerrilla activity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
I thought it odd he should come all the way up from Yale even hitchhiking, as he did, to save money, just to say hello.
From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
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.
