hitchhike

verb

1. (intransitive)To try to get a ride in a passing vehicle while standing at the side of a road, generally by either sticking out one's finger or thumb or holding a sign with one's stated destination.

   “She made a great many photographs, and hitchhiked her way back to Lanchow again, and thence to Peking.”

   “Holly came from Miami, F-L-A / Hitchhiked her way across the U.S.A.”

   “Tens of thousands of people had come to Washington the night before. They hitchhiked. They hopped on trains. They came in caravans of buses, through the night.”

2. (US, transitive)To try to get (a ride) in this manner.

   “Pamela hitchhiked a ride to New York.”

   ““I’m not goin’ to tell you what happened to me,” Asey said, “from the time I found her till I finally managed to hitchhike a ride to town. I want to forget that period of my life. […]””

3. (broadly, intransitive)To be carried along with something else.

   “In genetic hitchhiking, a gene is propagated because it occurs in conjunction with a favourable mutation.”

   “In cultural hitchhiking, a cultural trait spreads with a technologically advanced population.”

   “We are constantly being exposed to fungi, whether by picking up spores on our skin or eating food on which fungi are hitchhiking. Most of them won’t take up residence in our bodies.”

noun

1. A journey made by hitchhiking.
2. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of hitchhiker (“advertisement at the end of a programme”).

   “There are just too many diseases for each to have its own special organization, complete with radio hitchhikes, sponsored ads, expensive brochures, pledge cards, team captains and collection envelopes.”