hurt
/hɜːt/ verb, adjective, noun, proper noun
Forms hurts hurting hurted hurtest hurtedst hurteth
- verb (transitive, intransitive) To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury. “If anybody hurts my little brother, I will get upset.”
- verb (transitive, intransitive) To cause (somebody) emotional pain. “He was deeply hurt he hadn’t been invited.”
- verb (intransitive, stative) To be painful. “Does your leg still hurt? / It is starting to feel better.”
- verb (transitive, intransitive) To damage, harm, impair, undermine, impede. “This latest gaffe hurts the legislator’s reelection prospects still further.”
- adjective Wounded, physically injured.
- adjective Feeling physical or emotional pain.
- noun An emotional or psychological humiliation or bad experience. “how to overcome old hurts of the past”
- noun (archaic) A bodily injury causing pain; a wound or bruise.
- noun (archaic) Injury; damage; detriment; harm
- noun (engineering) A band on a trip hammer's helve, bearing the trunnions.
- noun A husk.
- noun (heraldry) A roundel azure (blue circular spot).
- proper noun (uncountable) A town in Virginia.
- proper noun (countable) A surname.
Synonyms
dere injure wound abuse annoy bewound damage damnify do damage to do for do ill do violence to forwork grieve harm harrow maul mayhem misdo put someone in hospital injury trauma distress suffering detriment scathe ache smart pain anguish
Antonyms
alleviate analgesize comfort dave ease heal relieve soothe benumb numb
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.
Unclear. Suggestions include: from its resemblance to a blue hurtleberry, or from French heurt (a blow, leaving a blue bruise), the latter of which would make it a doublet of hurt Etymology 1; compare the theories about golpe (“purple roundel”)).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To cause physical pain to; to do bodily harm to; to wound or bruise painfully.
- verb To impar the value, usefulness, beauty, or pleasure of; to damage; to injure; to harm.
Etymology [OE. hurten, hirten, horten, herten; prob. fr. OF. hurter, heurter, to knock, thrust, strike, F. heurter; cf. W. hyrddu to push, drive, assault, hwrdd a stroke, blow, push; also, a ram, the orig. sense of the verb thus perhaps being, to butt as a ram; cf. D. horten to push, strike, MHG. hurten, both prob. fr. Old French.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “hurt”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details