take a hike
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
go away and leave me alone
Literally: walk in a natural area
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Deaf people will think the film's over and take a hike before I get to do my roof - top ending.’
While all sex therapists insist on the need for emotional involvement to sustain good sex, there are some couples whose sex life takes a hike because they have become too close.
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 “take a hike” mean?
go away and leave me alone Literally: walk in a natural area
Is “take a hike” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.