If there weren't any unique vernacular for games, there wouldn't be any sense of community among its players. And the same goes for backgammon where the term "hit" can pertain to three kinds of action or description in backgammon lingo. Three kinds of hits in backgammon lingo include the direct hit, an indirect hit and a loose hit.
The term "hit" generally describes an action wherein a checker lands on an opposing blot resulting to the enemy checker's sentencing to the center bar. Since a dice roll represents two different moves (or four moves, if the roll resulted to doublets), the number of pips at the cast of the dice differentiate a hit from either the direct kind or the indirect kind.
A direct hit is one that attacks an opposing blot using the number of pip moves indicated by a die. It's so named in backgammon lingo because the number of spaces needed to hit that enemy piece can be had from the rolled value of one die and that's six pips or less.
Let's say you have checkers on the 14-point, there's an enemy blot on the ten-point and you roll a 4-2. If you use the higher die number which is four to land on the enemy checker. You'd be making a direct hit.
Now, if it takes the value of both die in sequence to hit an opposing checker, it's considered an indirect hit. So if the opposing blot was on the eight-point, from the example given above, your 4-2 roll would enable you to make an indirect hit on it.
A loose hit, on the other hand, can either be direct or indirect provided that the attack is on one's inner board that leaves one's own blot there in the process. That checker, in turn, takes the risk of being hit itself by a re-entering enemy barred piece.
For example, you have checkers on the eight-point, there's a lone enemy checker on your four-point which is an inner board point and you roll a 3-1. If you hit that blot using your eight-point checker, it's considered a loose hit.
While a hitting a blot can simply mean attacking it and sending it to the bar, there are three kinds of hits in backgammon lingo. The first one is a direct hit where you use the value of one die in a roll to attack an enemy piece. The second one is an indirect hit where both dice values are used to land on a blot. And the last kind is a loose hit wherein the attack is made on one's inner board that puts the attacking checker at risk of being hit by a re-entering piece from the bar.