Word.ws English Dictionary

hit the road

hit the road verb: to begin traveling in an automobile or other road vehicle.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, slang) To begin traveling in an automobile or other road vehicle.
    • If we're gonna make it by sunset, we'd better hit the road.
  2. (idiomatic, slang) To leave a place; to go away.
    • It's time for me to hit the road and walk home.
    Synonyms:
    hit the trail

Synonyms of hit the road

Forms of hit the road

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

Origin of hit the road

Compare typologically Russian уда́риться в бега́ (udáritʹsja v begá), уда́рить по та́пкам (udáritʹ po tápkam), тро́нуться (trónutʹsja).

Questions about hit the road

What does hit the road mean?
Hit the road means to begin traveling in an automobile or other road vehicle.
What part of speech is hit the road?
Hit the road is a verb.
What is the past tense of hit the road?
The past tense of hit the road is hit the road.

Words near hit the road in the dictionary

  1. hit the net
  2. hit the pan
  3. hit the pause button
  4. hit the pavement
  5. hit the rack
  6. hit the road
  7. hit the rock
  8. hit the rocks
  9. hit the roof
  10. hit the sack
  11. hit the sauce

Source and license

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

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