hurt
/hɝt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.94 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Example Sentences
- "If anybody hurts my little brother, I will get upset."
- "This injection might hurt a little. Your arm will be hurting you for a while."
- "He was deeply hurt he hadn’t been invited."
- "The insult hurt."
- "Does your leg still hurt? / It is starting to feel better."
- "This latest gaffe hurts the legislator’s reelection prospects still further."
Etymology
From Middle English hurten, hirten, hertan (“to injure, scathe, knock together”), from Old Northern French hurter ("to ram into, strike, collide with"; > Modern French heurter), perhaps from Frankish *hūrt (“a battering ram”), cognate with Welsh hwrdd (“ram”) and Cornish hordh (“ram”). Compare Proto-Germanic *hrūtaną, *hreutaną (“to fall, beat”), from Proto-Indo-European *krew- (“to fall, beat, smash, strike, break”); however, the earliest instances of the verb in Middle English are as old as those found in Old French, which leads to the possibility that the Middle English word may instead be a reflex of an unrecorded Old English *hyrtan, which later merged with the Old French verb. Germanic cognates include Dutch horten (“to push against, strike”), Middle Low German hurten (“to run at, collide with”), Middle High German hurten (“to push, bump, attack, storm, invade”), Old Norse hrútr (“battering ram”). Alternate etymology traces Old Northern French hurter rather to Old Norse hrútr (“ram (male sheep)”), lengthened-grade variant of hjǫrtr (“stag”), from Proto-Germanic *herutuz, *herutaz (“hart, male deer”), which would relate it to English hart (“male deer”). See hart.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /hɝt/
- British English: /hɜːt/
Usage
Inflected Forms
hurts (present, singular)
hurting (participle, present)
hurted (archaic, nonstandard)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
hurtest (archaic, present)
hurtedst (archaic, past)
hurteth (archaic, present)
- (imperative, past)
more hurt (comparative)
most hurt (superlative)
hurts (plural)