What does hit mean?

What does hit mean?. The world's largest and most trusted free online dictionary: definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more.

What does hit mean? - The Free Dictionary

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[n] (baseball) a successful stroke in an athletic contest (especially in baseball)(he came all the way around on Williams' hit)[v] cause to move by striking(hit a ball)[n] the act of contacting one thing with another(repeated hitting raised a large bruise after three misses she finally got

hit

hit - The Free Dictionary

[n] (baseball) a successful stroke in an athletic contest (especially in baseball)
(he came all the way around on Williams' hit)

[v] cause to move by striking
(hit a ball)

[n] the act of contacting one thing with another
(repeated hitting raised a large bruise after three misses she finally got a hit)

[v] hit against; come into sudden contact with
(The car hit a tree He struck the table with his elbow)

[n] a conspicuous success
(that song was his first hit and marked the beginning of his career that new Broadway show is a real smasher the party went with a bang)

[v] deal a blow to, either with the hand or with an instrument
(He hit her hard in the face)

[n] (physics) a brief event in which two or more bodies come together
(the collision of the particles resulted in an exchange of energy and a change of direction)

[v] reach a destination, either real or abstract
(We hit Detroit by noon The water reached the doorstep We barely made it to the finish line I have to hit the MAC machine before the weekend starts)

[n] a dose of a narcotic drug

[v] affect or afflict suddenly, usually adversely
(We were hit by really bad weather He was stricken with cancer when he was still a teenager The earthquake struck at midnight)

[n] a murder carried out by an underworld syndicate
(it has all the earmarks of a Mafia hit)

[v] hit with a missile from a weapon

[n] a connection made via the internet to another website
(WordNet gets many hits from users worldwide)

[v] encounter by chance
(I stumbled across a long-lost cousin last night in a restaurant)

[v] gain points in a game
(The home team scored many times He hit a home run He hit .300 in the past season)

[v] cause to experience suddenly
(Panic struck me An interesting idea hit her A thought came to me The thought struck terror in our minds They were struck with fear)

[v] make a strategic, offensive, assault against an enemy, opponent, or a target
(The Germans struck Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 We must strike the enemy's oil fields in the fifth inning, the Giants struck, sending three runners home to win the game 5 to 2)

[v] kill intentionally and with premeditation
(The mafia boss ordered his enemies murdered)

[v] drive something violently into a location
(he hit his fist on the table she struck her head on the low ceiling)

[v] reach a point in time, or a certain state or level
(The thermometer hit 100 degrees This car can reach a speed of 140 miles per hour)

[v] produce by manipulating keys or strings of musical instruments, also metaphorically
(The pianist strikes a middle C strike `z' on the keyboard her comments struck a sour note)

[v] consume to excess
(hit the bottle)

[v] hit the intended target or goal

[v] pay unsolicited and usually unwanted sexual attention to
(He tries to hit on women in bars)

Other vocabulary

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Dictionary

A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.

A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed[citation needed] to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary.

There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive.

The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta. The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.