Word.ws English Dictionary

hit the wall

hit the wall verb: to experience sudden fatigue as a result of glycogen depletion, e.g. when cycling.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To experience sudden fatigue as a result of glycogen depletion, e.g. when cycling.
    Synonyms:
    bonk
  2. (derogatory, idiomatic, informal) Of a woman: to lose her physical attractiveness through growing older.
    • Don't tell Heather Locklear. She won't be able to hear you anyway, as she is over forty and will have to turn up her hearing aid. By the way, please note that, according to urbandictionary.com, men don't hit the wall.2014, Lisa Scottoline, Francesca Serritella, Have a Nice Guilt Trip, page 50
    • N. L. Shraman, How to Seduce a Girl? The Science of Seduction
      Ninety percent of girls hit 24, they hit the wall; 25 they hit the wall because they don't care take care of themselves. They don't know any better because they hit their peak so young.

Synonyms of hit the wall

Forms of hit the wall

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

Questions about hit the wall

What does hit the wall mean?
Hit the wall means to experience sudden fatigue as a result of glycogen depletion, e.g. when cycling.
What part of speech is hit the wall?
Hit the wall is a verb.
What is the past tense of hit the wall?
The past tense of hit the wall is hit the wall.

Words near hit the wall in the dictionary

  1. hit the skids
  2. hit the spot
  3. hit the stores
  4. hit the streets
  5. hit the trail
  6. hit the wall
  7. hit them licks
  8. hit too close to home
  9. hit two birds with one shot
  10. hit two targets with one arrow
  11. hit up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hit the wall (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-hit the wall.wav.

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