Hurry

How to spell hurry

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hurry

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hurry mean?

1. verbTo move or act with great haste, or to make someone do so.
2. nounA state of urgency or great haste.

Hurry in a sentence

• verb

  We will have to hurry to catch the early train.

• noun

  In her hurry to leave, she forgot her phone on the table.

• verb

  There is no need to hurry through the report.

• noun

  There is no hurry, so take your time with the design.

Where does hurry come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word hurry first appears in English in the late 1500s, and its origin is not certain. It is most likely an imitative or echoic formation, a word coined to suggest the sound and feeling of hurried, agitated movement, much like flurry and scurry, which it resembles closely. Some scholars connect it to a dialectal English verb meaning to push or drive forward, and others compare it to Middle High German hurren, meaning to move quickly. William Shakespeare helped popularise the word, using it in his plays, which suggests it was already common speech by his day. Because the spelling rests on a doubled r and a final y rather than any clear root, it has stayed simple and stable: short, native-feeling, and easy to remember.

How the word is built

• hurry (probably imitative root suggesting rushing)
• no affix