Etimology
From Middle English hitten (“to hit, strike, make contact with”), from Old English hittan (“to meet with, come upon, fall in with”), from Old Norse hitta (“to strike, meet”), from Proto-Germanic *hittijaną (“to come upon, find”), from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂eyd- (“to fall; fall upon; hit; cut; hew”). Cognate with Icelandic hitta (“to meet”), Danish hitte (“to find”), Latin caedō (“to kill”), Albanian qit (“to hit, throw, pull out, release”).
verb
hit (third-person singular simple present hits, present participle hitting, simple past hit or (dialectal, obsolete) hat or (rare, dialectal) het, past participle hit or (archaic, rare, dialectal) hitten)
(heading, physical) To strike.
(transitive) To manage to touch (a target) in the right place.
(transitive, colloquial) To switch on.
(transitive, music, informal) To commence playing.
(transitive, colloquial) To briefly visit.
(transitive, informal) To encounter an obstacle or other difficulty.
(heading) To attain, to achieve.
(transitive) To affect negatively.
(figuratively) To attack.
(heading, games) To make a play.
(transitive, computing, programming) To use; to connect to.
(transitive, US, slang) To have sex with.
(transitive, US, slang) To inhale an amount of smoke from a narcotic substance, particularly marijuana.
(transitive, bodybuilding) (of an exercise) to affect, to work a body part.
(transitive, bodybuilding) to work out
Examples
One boy hit the other.
Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.
He tried to hit me but I dodged the blow and went out to plot revenge.
Bello: Good, by the rumping jumping general! That's the best bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn you! Bello: You're after hitting me. I'll tell […]
I hunted him for half a hour, aiming to learn him to hit a man with a table-leg and then run, but I didn't find him.
The ball hit the fence.
a dozen apples, each of them near as large as a Bristol barrel, came tumbling about my ears; one of them hit me on the back as I chanced to stoop, and knocked me down flat on my face.
Meanwhile the street boys kept up a shower of mud balls, many of which hit the Doctor, while the rest were distributed upon his assailants.
If bodies be extension alone, […] how can they move and hit one against another?
Hit the Enter key to continue.
Hit him tonight and throw the body in the river.
FREDO: Mikey, why would they ever hit poor old Frankie Five-Angels? I loved that ole sonuvabitch.
If intelligence had been what it should have been, I don't think we'd ever have hit that island.
Their coffee really hits the spot.
I used to listen to that song all the time, but it hits different now.
I hit the jackpot.
Antonym: miss
Antonyms: cut, kill
Somebody's been here! Hit the lights!
I'd love to hear your band play. Hit it boys!
We hit the grocery store on the way to the park.
You'll hit some nasty thunderstorms if you descend too late.
We hit a lot of traffic coming back from the movies.
The movie hits theaters in December.
The temperature could hit 110°F tomorrow.
We hit Detroit at one in the morning but kept driving through the night.
And her success with Glover, a product of the National Lottery-funded Sporting Giants talent identification programme, will also spark relief among British officials who were starting to fret a little about hitting their target of equalling fourth in the medal table from Beijing.
And oft it hits / Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.
All Human Race wou’d fain be Wits, / And Millions miſs, for one that hits.
Thou hast hit it.
And we shall sit at endless feast,Enjoying each the other’s good;What vaster dream can hit the moodOf Love on earth?
The economy was hit by a recession. The hurricane hit his fishing business hard.
I have to say this, he hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. I’ve never heard of this one. Look at those hands. Are they small hands?
Hit me.
Jones hit for the pitcher.
The external web servers hit DBSRV7, but the internal web server hits DBSRV3.
I'd hit that!
Tastes like fruit when you hit it; got to have bread to get it.
This is another great exercise which hits the long head.
With that said, the group hitting their legs just once a week still made gains.
Related words
synonyms
(administer a blow): beat, pelt, thump; see also Thesaurus:hit
(kill a person): bump off, do away with, whack; see also Thesaurus:kill
(attack): beset, fall upon, lay into; see also Thesaurus:attack
(have sex with): bang, ram, smash; see also Thesaurus:copulate with
(smoke marijuana): smoke up, toke
(work out): hit the gym
antonyms
(antonym(s) of "manage to touch in the right place"): miss
noun
hit (plural hits)
A blow; a punch; a striking against; the collision of one body against another; the stroke that touches anything.
Something very successful, such as a song, film, or video game, that receives widespread recognition and acclaim.
An attack on a location, person or people.
A collision of a projectile with the target.
(computing, Internet) A match found by searching a computer system or search engine
(Internet) A measured visit to a web site, a request for a single file from a web server.
An approximately correct answer in a test set.
(baseball) The complete play, when the batter reaches base without the benefit of a walk, error, or fielder’s choice.
(colloquial) A dose of an illegal or addictive drug.
A premeditated murder done for criminal or political purposes.
(dated) A peculiarly apt expression or turn of thought; a phrase which hits the mark.
(backgammon) A move that throws one of the opponent's men back to the entering point.
(backgammon) A game won after the adversary has removed some of his men. It counts for less than a gammon.
Examples
So he the fam'd Cilician fencer prais'd, / And, at each hit, with wonder seem'd amaz'd.
The hit was very slight.
Marie Taglioni was another hit for Her Majesty's Theatre last season, and will be a hit again this season […]
Chico & Rita opens in the modern era, as an aged, weary Chico shines shoes in his native Cuba. Then a song heard on the radio—a hit he wrote and recorded with Rita in their youth—carries him back to 1948 Havana, where they first met.
But signalman Bridges was never to answer driver Gimbert's desperate question. A deafening, massive blast blew the wagon to shreds, the 44 high-explosive bombs exploding like simultaneous hits from the aircraft they should have been dropped from. The station was instantly reduced to bits of debris, and the line to a huge crater.
My site received twice as many hits after being listed in a search engine.
The catcher got a hit to lead off the fifth.
Where am I going to get my next hit?
The questions that have always haunted the family — who ordered the hit, and why, and who in London might have known — remain unanswered.
a happy hit
What late he called a blessing, now was wit, / And God's good providence, a lucky hit.
Related words
antonyms
(antonym(s) of "a punch"): miss
(antonym(s) of "success"): flop, turkey
adjective
hit (not comparable)
Very successful.
Examples
The band played their hit song to the delight of the fans.
Etimology
From Middle English hit (“it”), from Old English hit (“it”), from Proto-Germanic *hit (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-, *ḱey- (“this, here”). Cognate with Dutch het (“it”). More at it. Note 'it.
pronoun
hit (subjective and objective hit, reflexive and intensive hitself, possessive adjective and noun hits)
(dialectal) It.
Examples
But how hit was to come about didn't appear.
Now, George, grease it good, an' let hit slide down the hill hits own way.