Word.ws English Dictionary

hit different

hit different verb: to affect someone in a profound (usually positive) way; to have a strong effect on one's emotions or mental state.

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive, slang) To affect someone in a profound (usually positive) way; to have a strong effect on one's emotions or mental state.
    • I don't mind pop, but 70s music just hits different.
    • But one element of the show that really, as the kids say, "hits different" is its (relatively) true-to-life portrayals of what it's like to struggle with mental health issues like addiction, depression, and emotional abuse.2019 October 10, Katie Way, “TV Depictions of Mental Illness Are on the Rise. HBO Wants to Give Context”, in VICE, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2022

Forms of hit different

third-person singular presenthits different
present participlehitting different
past participlehit different
pasthit different

Origin of hit different

From the sense of hit (“to affect someone, as if dealing a blow to that person”) + different, suggesting that something affects someone in a particularly unique way.

Questions about hit different

What does hit different mean?
Hit different means to affect someone in a profound (usually positive) way; to have a strong effect on one's emotions or mental state.
What part of speech is hit different?
Hit different is a verb.
What is the past tense of hit different?
The past tense of hit different is hit different.

Words near hit different in the dictionary

  1. hit below the belt
  2. hit bottom
  3. hit by pitch
  4. hit counter
  5. hit counters
  6. hit different
  7. hit hard
  8. hit home
  9. hit into the long grass
  10. hit it
  11. hit it and quit it

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hit different (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-hit different.wav.

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