Word.ws English Dictionary

hit the buffers

hit the buffers verb: to stop suddenly and unexpectedly.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To stop suddenly and unexpectedly.
    • The Midlanders will hope the victory will kickstart a campaign that looked to have hit the buffers, but the sense of trepidation enveloping the Reebok Stadium heading into the new year underlines the seriousness of the predicament facing Owen Coyle's men.2011 December 10, Marc Higginson, “Bolton 1 - 2 Aston Villa”, in BBC Sport

Forms of hit the buffers

third-person singular presenthits the buffers
present participlehitting the buffers
past participlehit the buffers
pasthit the buffers

Questions about hit the buffers

What does hit the buffers mean?
Hit the buffers means to stop suddenly and unexpectedly.
What part of speech is hit the buffers?
Hit the buffers is a verb.
What is the past tense of hit the buffers?
The past tense of hit the buffers is hit the buffers.

Words near hit the buffers in the dictionary

  1. hit the big time
  2. hit the board
  3. hit the books
  4. hit the bottle
  5. hit the bricks
  6. hit the buffers
  7. hit the button
  8. hit the ceiling
  9. hit the deck
  10. hit the dirt
  11. hit the fan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hit the buffers (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 the buffers.ogg.

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