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
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have hitchhikedperfect
-
has hitchhikedperfect
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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:
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
"When I run out of money, I will hitchhike or walk," she says.
From BBC ● May 16, 2023
“It’s an amazing, magical, healing place,” Yerkes said, adding that people are so friendly that many often hitchhike to work during the summer.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 6, 2022
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 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
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
“Once you have hitchhiked across Africa with ten bucks in your pocket, starting a business doesn’t seem too intimidating,” he told Time magazine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 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
Feeling remorseful after a year, the younger man wrote a song of apology and hitchhiked back to Kentucky to play it for his father.
From Seattle Times ● May 16, 2024
Once a week he hitchhiked to Chamisaville for lunch with the other volunteers, and for a shower at the KOA Kampgrounds a mile north of town.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
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
Indeed, history is filled with examples of this, from the medieval Black Death hitchhiking along the Silk Road to the “Russian flu” pandemic of the late 19th century that was accelerated by trains and steamships.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 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
One shows the couple with the hitchhiking ghosts from the famous finish of Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2025
In a sudden flash, I remembered the hitchhiking Green Beret.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
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.
