How to Use hitchhike in a Sentence

hitchhike

verb
  • Her car broke down, so she had to hitchhike back home.
  • He hitchhiked his way across the country last summer.
  • Martin skied to the road and hitchhiked to the ski area for help.
    Christopher Solomon, Outside Online, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Larry, who was 36 at the time, hitchhiked to Grand Marais to move in with his parents.
    Longreads, 4 June 2024
  • So the fact that some diving beetles had hitchhiked along didn’t seem like a bad thing at first.
    Jason Bittel, National Geographic, 1 Mar. 2019
  • The frogs would have to hitchhike across a state border to reach the area, and there’s some doubt tadpoles could even survive there.
    The Editorial Board, WSJ, 26 July 2018
  • The teenager was hitchhiking in the region and was picked up by a truck driver.
    Nancy Ing, NBC News, 14 Dec. 2023
  • The more particles a bird eats, the greater the chance that those hitchhiking microbes take hold in its gut.
    WIRED, 27 Mar. 2023
  • Whiteley sometimes cut north through the creek bed to hitchhike on the main road nearby, Spruill said.
    Dallas News, 22 Sep. 2021
  • The band hitchhiked, riding much of the way with a semitrailer truck driver on speed.
    Piet Levy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3 Nov. 2017
  • The 21-year-old hitchhiked and found help nearby, at a park employee’s home.
    Peter Charalambous, ABC News, 26 June 2023
  • The berries can hitchhike to new host trees by a bird's beak, an animal's fur, or feathers.
    Elizabeth Gamillo, Discover Magazine, 23 Dec. 2023
  • The caller said the woman seemed to be in distress and was trying to hitchhike or get someone to stop.
    cleveland, 11 June 2021
  • To get to trailheads, Leclerc would hitchhike, take the bus, or have his parents or his sister drop him off.
    Matt Skenazy, Outside Online, 19 June 2018
  • With no car or money, Lester hitchhiked to Chicago and held up a candy store.
    Mara Bovsun, New York Daily News, 16 June 2024
  • That’s like the kid who takes a year off after high school to hitchhike across Chile before heading to college.
    Houston Chronicle, 2 Apr. 2018
  • But Kathie, who had hitchhiked before, persuaded them to give it a try.
    Marisa Kwiatkowski, USA TODAY, 14 May 2024
  • Boats that pass through it would be shot with water jets to remove small and stunned fish that might hitchhike on boat bottoms.
    Laura Johnston, cleveland.com, 8 Dec. 2017
  • The bike actually breathed its last gasp in Chilean Patagonia, forcing the pair to hitchhike most of the way.
    Lisette Poole, Smithsonian, 24 Oct. 2019
  • Ricky and Keith had been in Europe for a while hitchhiking and bumming around.
    Jordan Runtagh, PEOPLE.com, 29 May 2018
  • The winding highway from the rugged wooded hills of Jerusalem to Tel Aviv on the coast was crowded with reservists hitchhiking to join their units.
    Lily Rothman, Time, 9 June 1950
  • After getting off the base by jumping in the back of a truck, James hitchhikes most of the way home and gets picked up by a farmer out looking for his daughter’s cat.
    Alice Burton, Vulture, 11 Feb. 2024
  • Like Don Shula finding his car battery dead and being forced to hitchhike home from the airport with son David.
    By Bob Rubin, miamiherald, 19 Dec. 2016
  • Arrange a car shuttle or hitchhike to get back to your vehicle.
    Carey Kish, Outside Online, 18 June 2020
  • The 2011 east Japan tsunami swept huge amounts of wreckage out to sea—and Japanese species hitchhiked across the Pacific on the debris.
    Christopher Intagliata, Scientific American, 28 Sep. 2017
  • Panspermia takes this a step further and suggests that life could catch a ride on that debris, hitchhiking from one planet to the next.
    National Geographic, 22 Mar. 2017
  • Once, when a train strike left them stranded in Eastern Germany, they were forced to hitchhike at night—but Otto helped Sims keep her cool.
    Kathryn Hymes, The Atlantic, 14 Apr. 2022
  • Invasive zebra mussels, which hitchhiked into the lakes in 1989, are also found along the bottom of the lake.
    Caitlin Looby, Journal Sentinel, 2 May 2024
  • Smith was traveling from Louisville to Evansville when her car broke down on Interstate 64, prompting her to ditch her car and hitchhike the remainder of the way, according to the affidavit.
    Killian Baarlaer, The Courier-Journal, 3 Sep. 2024
  • Hemme had been discharged from that same hospital the day before Jeschke's body was found, and arrived at her parents' house later that night after hitchhiking more than 100 miles across the state.
    Michael Dorgan, Fox News, 20 July 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hitchhike.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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