hit out
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English
[edit]Verb
[edit]hit out (third-person singular simple present hits out, present participle hitting out, simple past and past participle hit out)
- 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.
- (figurative) To react viciously (towards someone/something).
- 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part II, XX [Uniform ed., p. 204]:
- '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]:
- (obsolete) To perform by good luck.
- 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC:
- having the sound of those auncient poets still ringing in his eares, he mought needes, in singing, hit out some of their tunes
- To leave; to head out.