How to use hitchhike in a sentence

12 example sentences · verb, noun

Hitchhike means 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. Example: “Pamela hitchhiked a ride to New York.”

Examples of hitchhike by meaning

verbTo try to get a ride in a passing vehicle while standing at the side of a road, generally by either sticking out one's...

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...

verbTo try to get (a ride) in this manner.

Pamela hitchhiked a ride to New York.
“I’m not goin’ to tell you what happened to me,” Asey said, “from the time I found her till I finally managed to hitchhike a ride to town.1945, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, Proof of the Pudding, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, page 42

verbTo be carried along with something else.

In genetic hitchhiking, a gene is propagated because it occurs in conjunction with a favourable mutation.
In cultural hitchhiking, a cultural trait spreads with a technologically advanced population.
We are constantly being exposed to fungi, whether by picking up spores on our skin or eating food on which fungi are hitchhiking.2022 September 29, Carl Zimmer, “A New Approach to Spotting Tumors: Look for Their Microbes”, in The New York Times

More sentences with hitchhike

I heard that hitchhiking was illegal, so I made sure to only stick out my thumb to noncops.2013, V. S. Nesby, 13 Kings, page 28. From the entry noncop
Keen and Easy Aces from their early evening periods on CBS, which also killed my cowcatchers and hitchhikes.2009, George Ansbro, I Have a Lady in the Balcony, page 138. From the entry cowcatcher
National advertisers have probably been major contributors to this practice through the use of so-called hitchhike and cowcatcher announcements.1945, Charles Harold Sandage, Radio Advertising for Retailers, page 185. From the entry cowcatcher
I hitchhiked, jumped freight trains, cajoled guajiros into lending me their mules, slept in caves or beneath the canopies of immense ceiba trees.1997, Cristina García, “Rarae Aves”, in The Agüero Sisters, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page 153. From the entry rara avis
Occasionally young Americans or Europeans hitchhike rides on the road that leads from Golmud in Qinghai province over the Himalayas to Lhasa.1985 June 9, Mark A. Cohen, “Tibet: Open to the World at Last”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company…. From the entry Golmud
A pair of local pests, the thrip and white fly, made their way into the greenhouse through the air vents and hitchhiked into the conservatory on plants.2000, Brian McAndrew, Niagara Parks Butterflies, page 49. From the entry thrip

Meaning of hitchhike

verb 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.
verb To try to get (a ride) in this manner.
verb To be carried along with something else.

Full definition of hitchhike

Questions about hitchhike in a sentence

How do you use hitchhike in a sentence?: Hitchhike is used as a verb and noun. For example: “Pamela hitchhiked a ride to New York.”
What is a short sentence with hitchhike?: “Pamela hitchhiked a ride to New York.”
What does hitchhike mean?: Hitchhike means 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.

Adapted from Wiktionary: hitchhike (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use hitchhike in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/hitchhike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.