hit upon

verb — 2 senses

hit upon

verb
1

To address.

  • He hit upon all major concerns during the presentation.
2

Idiomatic To think of; to discover or invent.

  • So next day the hunting began. I did not know how to shoot, but I proceeded to learn. And when I had expended some thirty shells for three seals, I decided that the ammunition would be exhausted before I acquired the necessary knowledge. I had used eight shells for lighting fires before I hit upon the device of banking the embers with wet moss, and there remained not over a hundred shells in the box.1904, Jack London, chapter 30, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC:
  • They hit upon the idea of a site that would help users exchange video files.2006 October 10, Miguel Helft, Matt Richtel, “Venture Firm Shares a YouTube Jackpot”, in New York Times:
Related terms
hit on

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.