Word.ws English Dictionary

hit a snag

hit a snag verb: to encounter an unexpected problem or delay.

Verb

hit a snag (third-person singular simple present hits a snag, present participle hitting a snag, simple past and past participle hit a snag)

  1. (idiomatic) To encounter an unexpected problem or delay.
    • Their plans to finish the garden that weekend hit a snag when an unseasonal snowfall dropped several inches on what should have become the pumpkin patch that day.
    • Ms. Harris opted for buying hair and getting a beautician to make it into a two “forever wigs,” right for her face and head measurements. Even so, she hit several snags. When her wigs arrived, one was just too full.2020 September 24, Cynthia Greenlee, “Now’s the Time for Wigs. If You Can Get the Hair for Them.”, in The New York Times

Forms of hit a snag

third-person singular presenthits a snag
present participlehitting a snag
past participlehit a snag
pasthit a snag

Questions about hit a snag

What does hit a snag mean?
Hit a snag means to encounter an unexpected problem or delay.
What part of speech is hit a snag?
Hit a snag is a verb.
What is the past tense of hit a snag?
The past tense of hit a snag is hit a snag.

Words near hit a snag in the dictionary

  1. hit a home run
  2. hit a lick
  3. hit a nerve
  4. hit a raw nerve
  5. hit a six
  6. hit a snag
  7. hit a stain
  8. hit a wall
  9. hit above one's weight
  10. hit and giggle
  11. hit and hope

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hit a snag (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hit a snag.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hit a snag.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hit_a_snag. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.