hit out

hit out (third-person singular simple present hits out, present participle hitting out, simple past and past participle hit out)

1. To strike out with the fist, usually without planning or accuracy.

   Feeling somebody grab at his wallet in the darkness, he hit out at the assailant.

2. (figurative) To react viciously (towards someone/something).
   • 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part II, XX [Uniform ed., p. 204]:

     'What have we done? What shall we ever do? Just drift and criticize, while people who know what they want snatch it away from us and laugh.”

     “Perhaps you are that sort. I’m not. When the moment comes I shall hit out like any ploughboy. …"

3. (obsolete) To perform by good luck.
   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC; reprinted as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, The Shepheardes Calender […], London: John C. Nimmo, […], 1890, →OCLC:

     having the sound of those auncient poets still ringing in his eares, he mought needes, in singing, hit out some of their tunes

• outhit