hit the ground running
hit the ground running verb: to begin an activity immediately and with full commitment.
Verb
hit the ground running (third-person singular simple present hits the ground running, present participle hitting the ground running, simple past and past participle hit the ground running)
- To begin an activity immediately and with full commitment.
- Employers these days look for candidates that can hit the ground running, so that they spend less on training.
- Well, the years start coming and they don’t stop coming.
Fed to the rules and I hit the ground runnin’.1999 June 8, Smash Mouth, “All Star”, in Astro Longue
Forms of hit the ground running
| third-person singular present | hits the ground running |
|---|---|
| present participle | hitting the ground running |
| past participle | hit the ground running |
| past | hit the ground running |
Questions about hit the ground running
- What does hit the ground running mean?
- Hit the ground running means to begin an activity immediately and with full commitment.
- What part of speech is hit the ground running?
- Hit the ground running is a verb.
- What is the past tense of hit the ground running?
- The past tense of hit the ground running is hit the ground running.
Words near hit the ground running in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hit the ground running (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 ground running.ogg.
Cite this entry: “hit the ground running.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hit_the_ground_running. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.