Word.ws English Dictionary

hitting out

hitting out is the present participle and gerund of hit out.

Meaning of hit out

Verb

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

  1. To strike out with the fist, usually without planning or accuracy.
    • Feeling somebody grab at his wallet in the darkness, he hit out at the assailant.
  2. (figuratively) To react viciously (towards someone/something).
    • 'What have we done? What shall we ever do? Just drift and criticize, while people who know what they want snatch it away from us and laugh.”
      “Perhaps you are that sort. I’m not. When the moment comes I shall hit out like any ploughboy. …"1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part II, XX [Uniform ed., p. 204]
  3. (obsolete) To perform by good luck.
    • having the sound of those auncient poets still ringing in his eares, he mought needes, in singing, hit out some of their tunes1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC
  4. To leave; to head out.

Questions about hitting out

What is hitting out the present participle and gerund of?
Hitting out is the present participle and gerund of hit out.

Words near hitting out in the dictionary

  1. hitting on all six
  2. hitting one hard
  3. hitting one out of the ball park
  4. hitting one out of the ballpark
  5. hitting one's marks
  6. hitting out
  7. hitting partner
  8. hitting partners
  9. hitting pause
  10. hitting pay dirt
  11. hitting paydirt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hitting out (page history and authors); hit out (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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Cite this entry: “hitting out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hitting_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.