hit the ceiling
hit the ceiling is the alternative form of hit the roof.
Meaning of hit the roof
Verb
hit the roof (third-person singular simple present hits the roof, present participle hitting the roof, simple past and past participle hit the roof)
- To be explosively angry; to lose one's temper.
- When he found out I wrecked his brand-new car, he hit the roof.
- Synonyms:
- hit the ceiling, go ballistic, blow one's top, flip out, go ape, go apeshit, lose it, lose one's rag, pop one's cork
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hit, the, roof.
- Snider’s dad slipped. He hit the roof with a thump, letting go of Snider to throw his arms out and catch himself.2009, Alan Gratz, The Brooklyn Nine: A Novel in Nine Innings, Speak, Penguin Group, published 2010, →ISBN, page 268
Forms of hit the ceiling
| third-person singular present | hits the ceiling |
|---|---|
| present participle | hitting the ceiling |
| past participle | hit the ceiling |
| past | hit the ceiling |
Questions about hit the ceiling
- What is hit the ceiling the alternative form of?
- Hit the ceiling is the alternative form of hit the roof.
Words near hit the ceiling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hit the ceiling (page history and authors); hit the roof (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 the ceiling.wav.
Cite this entry: “hit the ceiling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hit_the_ceiling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.