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PlainSpell

hitchhiker

/ˈhɪtʃˌhaɪkɚ/noun

hitchhiker is a noun meaning “A person or thing that hitchhikes” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-I-T-C-H-H-I-K-E-R and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hitchhiker is hitchhikers.

What does hitchhiker mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A person or thing that hitchhikes.

  2. 2

    An item attached to a travel bug and hidden in a geocache to be found and transported to other caches or around the world.

  3. 3

    A dance move in which the dancer mimics the motions of someone thumbing a ride.

  4. 4

    informalA bur that attaches and clings to clothing, or a bur-bearing plant.

  5. 5

    An advertisement at the end of a program.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce hitchhiker?

  • UK /ˈhɪtʃˌhaɪkə/
  • US /ˈhɪtʃˌhaɪkɚ/

Hitchhiker has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-hitchhiker.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of hitchhiker

  • hitchhikers plural
  • hitch-hiker

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is hitchhiker?

Hitchhiker appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 52,337th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Hitchhiker in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense a person who hitchhikes:

LanguageWords
Frenchautostoppeur, pouceux
GermanAnhalter, Tramper
Portuguesecaroneiro
Spanishautoestopista, autostopista

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does hitchhiker come from?

From hitchhike + -er.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).