hit the roof

verb

"hit-the-roof" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“hit the roof” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
12
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To be explosively angry; to lose one's temper.

Corpus desk

Index EN-hit-the-roof · hit the roof · English

hit the roof · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "H" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for hit the roof
PropertyValue
Headwordhit the roof
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “hit the roof” in English

hit the roofsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

hit the roof is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for hit the roof, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is hit the roof, spelled H-I-T- -T-H-E- -R-O-O-F.

Definition

  1. 1
    To be explosively angry; to lose one's temper.
  2. 2
    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hit, the, roof.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how hit the roof appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. When he found out I wrecked his brand-new car, he hit the roof.
  2. Half a year of profits gone and now there's hell to pay / The cops say they know who, but there's no proof / The banker hit the roof / and damn near took the car.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "hit the roof"?
"hit the roof" is spelled H-I-T- -T-H-E- -R-O-O-F.
What does "hit the roof" mean?
As a verb, "hit the roof" means: To be explosively angry; to lose one's temper.
What language does "hit the roof" come from?
"hit the roof" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list