Hitch Meaning
/hɪt͡ʃ/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA sudden pull.
nounAny of various knots used to attach a rope to an object other than another rope.
Sentence Examples
It went without a hitch.
Tom is hoping that he can hitch a ride to Boston.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The driver used a rope to ____ the small trailer to his truck.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The car had a small ____ on the back so that they could pull a trailer filled with camping gear.
Word Origin & History
Probably from Middle English hicchen, hytchen, icchen (“to move; to move as with a jerk”), of obscure origin. Lacks cognates in other languages. Compare itch, hike.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The service operated according to plan on the Monday morning with only a few hitches."
— 1961 July, “Glasgow emergency - the restoration of Clydeside steam suburban services”, in Trains Illustrated, page 432:
"Over the next week, the hitch in my dad's stride eased a bit. But we'd run out of things to talk about."
— 2008 October, Davy Rothbart, “How I caught up with dad”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 8, →ISSN, page 110:
"An upcast fault is when the seam is thrown up; to counteract this a "canch" of top stone must be taken down outbye over from the fault, and a "canch" of bottom stone taken up inbye over from the fault, then level up to the bottom of your "canch" at the foreside of the hitch outbye over until you have a regular gradient to the seam on the hitch."
— 1879, William Bailes, Student's Guide to the Principles of Coal & Metal Mining, page 17:
"Philander went into the next room, which was just a lean-to hitched on to the end of the shanty, and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm. Then he put the coffee pot on the stove and rummaged out a loaf of dry bread and some hardtack."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"The company has hitched its future to artificial intelligence — whether with its voice-enabled digital assistant or its automated placement of advertising for marketers — as the breakthrough technology to make the next generation of services and devices smarter and more capable."
— 2020 December 3, Cade Metz, Daisuke Wakabayashi, “Google Researcher Says She Was Fired Over Paper Highlighting Bias in A.I.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The driver used a rope to ____ the small trailer to his truck.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The car had a small ____ on the back so that they could pull a trailer filled with camping gear.