pinch-hit
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to substitute for someone, especially in an emergency
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Thay thế cho người khác, đặc biệt trong trường hợp khẩn cấp
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: hit in place of another player in baseball
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
She had to pinch-hit for the presenter who was unable to attend.
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
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 “pinch-hit” mean?
to substitute for someone, especially in an emergency Literally: hit in place of another player in baseball
Is “pinch-hit” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.