The earliest use of the word hit, H-I-T, was as a verb.

The act of happening upon a person or thing.

We still use it this way to describe a fortunate meeting or locating the solution to a problem.

We hit it off with a new friend at the bar.

We hit upon the answer to a question that's been bothering us.

At some point in the 15th or 16th century,

it had been used enough to describe hitting upon one's target in battle

that we started saying hit to describe physical assault.

The stranger insulted the man's wife, so the man hit the stranger.

It wasn't really until the 1800s that the word hit started being applied to creative endeavors

that performed well with an audience.

The way we use it today to talk about movies, podcasts, songs, etc.

They've really got a hit on their hands with this one.

You could say all of the original meanings of the word are there when we talk about a hit song.

Broadly speaking, the creators of a hit song hit upon the correct arrangement of sound and words

to give us what we want to hear.

We in turn hit upon the song in the aisles of a music store

or while skipping between stations or playlists.

The physical sound waves actually hit our eardrums.

And if you're listening to country music, then you may be inclined to hit the bottle

in response to what you hear.

In other words, any hit song is really a series of hits.

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