What does “faire de l’auto-stop” mean in French?

Faire de l’auto-stop means to hitchhike — to thumb a lift from a passing driver. The noun auto-stop literally welds auto (car) to the English stop, a sign of when it entered French. In speech you’ll far more often hear the clipped faire du stop, and the gesture itself is lever le pouce, “to raise the thumb.” A backpacker’s essential verb.

The word appeared at the end of the 1930s, when barely one French person in twenty had a car and catching a ride was a real way to travel. Useful relatives: un auto-stoppeur / une auto-stoppeuse is the hitchhiker, prendre quelqu’un en stop is to pick someone up. In Quebec the same act is faire du pouce — literally “to do the thumb.”