hurt

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”), from Proto-Germanic *hrūtaną, *hreutaną (“to fall, beat”), from Proto-Indo-European *krew- (“to fall, beat, smash, strike, break”). Related to 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”),[1] from Proto-Germanic *herutuz, *herutaz (“hart, male deer”), which would relate it to English hart (“male deer”). See hart.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: hû(r)t, IPA^(key): /hɜːt/
• (General American) enPR: hûrt, IPA^(key): /hɝt/

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t

hurt (third-person singular simple present hurts, present participle hurting, simple past and past participle hurt)

1. (intransitive) To be painful.

   Does your leg still hurt? / It is starting to feel better.

2. (transitive) To cause (a creature) physical pain and/or injury.

   If anybody hurts my little brother I will get upset.

3. (transitive) To cause (somebody) emotional pain.
4. (transitive) To undermine, impede, or damage.

   This latest gaffe hurts the legislator’s reelection prospects still further.

   • 1568, William Cornishe, “A treatise betwene Trouth, and Information”, in J[ohn] S[tow], editor, Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate, London, OCLC 54747393; republished as Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate to King Henry the VIIIth, London: Printed for C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, 1736, OCLC 731569711, page 290:

     The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunying of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge

• (to be painful): smart
• (to cause physical pain and/or injury): wound, injure, dere

• hurtle
• wouldn't hurt a fly

• ache

hurt (comparative more hurt, superlative most hurt)

1. Wounded, physically injured.
2. Pained.

• (wounded): imbrued, injured, wounded; see also Thesaurus:wounded
• (pained): aching, sore, suffering

hurt (plural hurts)

1. An emotional or psychological humiliation or bad experience.
   • how to overcome old hurts of the past
2. (archaic) A bodily injury causing pain; a wound or bruise.
   • 1605, Shakespeare, King Lear vii

     I have received a hurt.

   • John Locke

     The pains of sickness and hurts […] all men feel.

3. (archaic) injury; damage; detriment; harm
   • Shakespeare

     Thou dost me yet but little hurt.

4. (heraldry) A roundel azure (blue circular spot).
5. (engineering) A band on a trip-hammer helve, bearing the trunnions.
6. A husk.

• hurty

• Ruth, Thur, ruth, thru, thur

From Middle High German

hurt m inan

1. wholesale

• hurtowy, hurtownia, hurtownik