Word.ws English Dictionary

hitstun

hitstun noun: a brief state after being hit by an attack during which a character is unable to move ("stunned").

Noun

hitstun (uncountable)

  1. (fighting games) A brief state after being hit by an attack during which a character is unable to move ("stunned").
    • My problem is that Vega has no real combo's that keep an enemy in hit-stun so they can't defend beyond the first hit.1992 October 20, Steve Williams, “Vega combo's needed”, in alt.games.sf2 mailing list, via Google Groups, retrieved 07 Aug 2026
    • Once Kasumi connects with the standing D, her opponent is unable to avoid the rest of the hits. Obviously this isn't true if you're in Armor Mode, since you never go into hitstun, but you get the idea.1999 December 27, Chris MacDonald, “The King of Fighters '99 FAQ "Millenium Battle" FAQ v0.3”, in GameFAQs, archived from the original on 19 Feb 2019

Examples of hitstun in a sentence

  • Hitstun—state a character enters when they are hit with an attack and did not block or guard.2007, Adam Deats, Joe Epstein, Virtua Fighter 5 (Official Strategy Guide), BradyGames, →ISBN, page 3:
  • […] if the reflector connected with my opponent, I try to knock them offstage with an aerial attack while they’re still vulnerable to attack (“in hitstun”) from the reflector.2020, Matt Knutson, Frame-Perfect: Temporalities in Competitive Gaming, University of California, Irvine, via ProQuest, retrieved 06 Aug...

Forms of hitstun

alternative formhit-stun

Origin of hitstun

From hit + stun.

Questions about hitstun

What does hitstun mean?
Hitstun means a brief state after being hit by an attack during which a character is unable to move ("stunned").
How do you use hitstun in a sentence?
Hitstun—state a character enters when they are hit with an attack and did not block or guard.
What part of speech is hitstun?
Hitstun is a noun.

Words near hitstun in the dictionary

  1. Hitsman
  2. Hitsmans
  3. Hitson
  4. Hitsons
  5. hitstop
  6. hitstun
  7. Hitt
  8. Hitt.
  9. hittability
  10. hittable
  11. hitted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hitstun (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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