hit the jackpot
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
Have great or unexpected success.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The 1987 Sunflowers tour hit the jackpot.
It numbed the mind of one woman so much recently that she left her baby to suffocate inside her car while hoping to hit the jackpot, a bucketful of balls, which can be exchanged for jars of coffee or pairs of tights.
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. Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “hit the jackpot” mean?
Have great or unexpected success.
Is “hit the jackpot” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.