Word.ws English Dictionary

hitting the wall

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

Meaning of hit the wall

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

Questions about hitting the wall

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

Words near hitting the wall in the dictionary

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

Source and license

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