hitchhiking

Verb

hitchhike (third-person singular simple present hitchhikes, present participle hitchhiking, simple past and past participle hitchhiked)

1. (intransitive) To try to get a ride in a passing vehicle while standing at the side of a road, generally by either sticking out one's finger or thumb or holding a sign with one's stated destination.
   • She made a great many photographs, and hitchhiked her way back to Lanchow again, and thence to Peking.1953, Pearl Buck, “Preface”, in Irene Vongehr Vincent, The Sacred Oasis: Caves of the Thousand Buddhas Tun Huang, University of Chicago Press, page x
2. (US, transitive) To try to get (a ride) in this manner.
   • Pamela hitchhiked a ride to New York.
3. (broadly, intransitive) To be carried along with something else.
   • In genetic hitchhiking, a gene is propagated because it occurs in conjunction with a favourable mutation.

See all 4 meanings of hitchhike