hitchhike

Alternative forms

• hitch-hike

Etymology

From hitch +‎ hike.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɪt͡ʃhaɪk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Verb

hitchhike (third-person singular simple present hitchhikes, present participle hitchhiking, simple past and past participle hitchhiked)

1. (intransitive) To try to get a ride in a passing vehicle while standing at the side of a road, generally by either sticking out one's finger or thumb or holding a sign with one's stated destination.

   After much deliberation, he decided hitchhiking was his only way out of London.

   • 2020, Jill Lepore, “The Things They Carried” (chapter 11), in If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, Liveright Publishing Corporation, page 251:

     Tens of thousands of people had come to Washington the night before. They hitchhiked. They hopped on trains. They came in caravans of buses, through the night.

2. (US, transitive) To try to get (a ride) in a passing vehicle while standing at the side of a road, generally by either sticking out one's finger or thumb or holding a sign with one's stated destination.

   Pamela hitchhiked a ride to New York.

   • 1945, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, Proof of the Pudding, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, page 42:

     “I’m not goin’ to tell you what happened to me,” Asey said, “from the time I found her till I finally managed to hitchhike a ride to town. I want to forget that period of my life. […] ”

3. (US, transitive) to make (one's way) by hitchhiking.
   • 1953, Pearl Buck, “Preface”, in Irene Vongehr Vincent, The Sacred Oasis: Caves of the Thousand Buddhas Tun Huang, University of Chicago Press, page x:

     She made a great many photographs, and hitchhiked her way back to Lanchow again, and thence to Peking.

   • 1972, Lou Reed (lyrics and music), “Walk on the Wild Side”, in Transformer:

     Holly came from Miami, F-L-A / Hitchhiked her way across the U.S.A.

4. (intransitive, by extension) To be carried along with something else.

   In genetic hitchhiking, a gene is propagated because it occurs in conjunction with a favourable mutation.

   In cultural hitchhiking, a cultural trait spreads with a technologically advanced population.

   • 2022 September 29, Carl Zimmer, “A New Approach to Spotting Tumors: Look for Their Microbes”, in The New York Times‎:

     We are constantly being exposed to fungi, whether by picking up spores on our skin or eating food on which fungi are hitchhiking. Most of them won’t take up residence in our bodies.

Noun

hitchhike (plural hitchhikes)

1. A journey made by hitchhiking.
2. (radio, advertising) Alternative form of hitchhiker (“advertisement at the end of a programme”)
   • 1952, Frank Emerson Andrews, Corporation Giving, page 183:

     There are just too many diseases for each to have its own special organization, complete with radio hitchhikes, sponsored ads, expensive brochures, pledge cards, team captains and collection envelopes.

See also

• hitchhiker