hit the fan
hit the fan verb: to have a dramatic, usually negative, effect.
Verb
hit the fan (third-person singular simple present hits the fan, present participle hitting the fan, simple past and past participle hit the fan)
- To have a dramatic, usually negative, effect.
- They were just clowning around, when suddenly it all hit the fan.
- Then the shit really hit the fan.
Forms of hit the fan
| third-person singular present | hits the fan |
|---|---|
| present participle | hitting the fan |
| past participle | hit the fan |
| past | hit the fan |
Origin of hit the fan
Uncertain. Possibly derived from an old joke: A man in a crowded bar needed to defecate but couldn't find a bathroom, so he went upstairs and used a hole in the floor. Returning, he found everyone had gone except the bartender, who was cowering behind the bar. When the man asked what had happened, the bartender replied, 'Where were you when the shit hit the fan?' Other possible sources include American or Canadian military slang or agricultural manure spreaders.
Questions about hit the fan
- What does hit the fan mean?
- Hit the fan means to have a dramatic, usually negative, effect.
- What part of speech is hit the fan?
- Hit the fan is a verb.
- What is the past tense of hit the fan?
- The past tense of hit the fan is hit the fan.
Words near hit the fan in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hit the fan (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 fan.ogg.
Cite this entry: “hit the fan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hit_the_fan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.