The term "hit" can refer to any marketing success involving (often sudden) popularity of and demand for a particular item. A hit in this context measures achievement in an area dominated by variable and mutable fashions.

Hits have a particular resonance in the music industry, which utilised the concept of hit parades of popular music. Popular films may also gain the title of "hit", but compare the use of the even more violent term "blockbuster".


Hits in archery and in target shooting express the not-unrelated notion of getting to the exact desired spot, commonly the center point of a target.


A hit, in the context of recreational drug use, is a single dose of a drug.


A hit is a slang term for an assassination by an organized crime syndicate. To put out a hit is to call for said assassination. Such an order typically comes from a senior member of the syndicate. Relations between criminals being as they are, most hits take place on members of rival (or sometimes fellow) syndicates. There are a variety of other terms for the same activity, such as to take someone out or to take care of someone.