Hitter

How to spell hitter

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hitter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hitter mean?

1. nounA person who strikes something, especially a batter in baseball or a player who strikes the ball in other sports.

Hitter in a sentence

• The team's strongest hitter stepped up to the plate.

• As a left-handed hitter he caused trouble for the opposing pitchers.

Where does hitter come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is an agent noun built from the verb 'hit', which English took from the Old Norse word hitta, meaning 'to come upon' or 'to meet with'. In the language of the Viking settlers the sense was closer to finding or chancing upon something rather than striking it, and traces of that older meaning survive in phrases like 'hit upon an idea'. By the Middle Ages the dominant English sense had shifted to delivering a blow or striking a target, and the agent form 'hitter', meaning one who strikes, follows the normal English pattern of adding -er to a verb. Because the verb ends in a short stressed vowel followed by a single consonant, the t doubles before the suffix, which is the small spelling rule that keeps it from looking like 'hiter'. The word is now strongly associated with bat-and-ball sports, where a hitter is a batter who strikes the ball.

How the word is built

• hit (from Old Norse hitta: to strike or come upon)
• -t- (doubled consonant)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)