To hit upon

To hit upon
Hit Hit, v. i. 1. To meet or come in contact; to strike; to clash; -- followed by against or on. [1913 Webster]

If bodies be extension alone, how can they move and hit one against another? --Locke. [1913 Webster]

Corpuscles, meeting with or hitting on those bodies, become conjoined with them. --Woodward. [1913 Webster]

2. To meet or reach what was aimed at or desired; to succeed, -- often with implied chance, or luck. [1913 Webster]

And oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most fits. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

And millions miss for one that hits. --Swift. [1913 Webster]

{To hit on} or {To hit upon}, to light upon; to come to by chance; to discover unexpectedly; as, he hit on the solution after days of trying. ``None of them hit upon the art.'' --Addison. [1913 Webster]


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.

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  • hit upon — index find (discover) Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 …   Law dictionary

  • hit upon a solution — index resolve (solve) Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 …   Law dictionary

  • hit upon — phrasal verb [transitive] Word forms hit upon : present tense I/you/we/they hit upon he/she/it hits upon present participle hitting upon past tense hit upon past participle hit upon 1) hit upon something same as hit on 1) She hit upon a clever… …   English dictionary

  • hit upon — verb a) To address. He hit upon all major concerns during the presentation. b) To think of; to invent; to realize. 2006. They hit upon the idea of a site that would help users exchange video files. mdash; Venture Firm Shares a YouTube Jackpot ,… …   Wiktionary

  • hit upon — phr verb Hit upon is used with these nouns as the object: ↑idea …   Collocations dictionary

  • hit upon — find what you want or think of something by chance We hit upon the idea of going to the lake for our holiday after our airline reservations were cancelled …   Idioms and examples

  • hit upon something — ˈhit on/upon sth derived no passive (rather informal) to think of a good idea suddenly or by chance • She hit on the perfect title for her new novel. Main entry: ↑hitderived …   Useful english dictionary

  • hit\ upon — • hit (up)on v To happen to meet, find, or reach; to choose or think by chance, John hit on a business that was just starting to grow rapidly. There seemed to be several explanations of the crime, but the detectives hit on the right one the first …   Словарь американских идиом

  • hit upon — Synonyms and related words: alight upon, arrive at, arrive upon, blunder upon, bump into, chance upon, come across, come at, come down on, come on, come up against, come upon, descend upon, discover serendipitously, drop on, encounter, fall in… …   Moby Thesaurus

  • hit upon — Find, discover, find out, fall upon, light upon, chance upon …   New dictionary of synonyms

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