means A person who travels by asking strangers for free rides, typically by standing at the roadside and signaling with an outstretched thumb.

from A compound of "hitch" and "hike," both with humble roots: "hitch" meant to fasten or catch onto something (as a wagon hitched to a horse), and "hike" meant to tramp on foot. Stitched together in early 20th-century American English, the word captures the whole maneuver — you walk until you can latch onto someone else's journey. The famous upthrust thumb came along with the automobile age, becoming the universal roadside semaphore for "going your way?"