hit home
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To have a strong and personal impact on someone
Literally: a blow striking a house
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Noel Redding has pointed out that what hit home to people about Jimi Hendrix, apart from his guitar playing and in many instances more so, was his extraordinary voice.
He said the Liberal Democrats had experienced a squeeze in the last few days of the campaign as the Tory message that a vote for the Liberal Democrats would open the door to Labour hit home.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “hit home” mean?
To have a strong and personal impact on someone Literally: a blow striking a house
Is “hit home” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.