Hurt

How to spell hurt

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce hurt

What does hurt mean?

1. verbTo cause physical or emotional pain to a person or part of the body.
2. nounMental or emotional pain or distress.
3. adjectiveInjured, or feeling emotional pain or offence.

Hurt in a sentence

• verb

  A bad fall can hurt your back for weeks.

• noun

  You could hear the hurt in her voice after the rejection.

• adjective

  He looked genuinely hurt when his idea was dismissed.

• verb

  Harsh words from a manager can hurt an employee deeply.

• noun

  Years of hurt surfaced during the family meeting.

• adjective

  The hurt player limped off the field before halftime.

Where does hurt come from?

Language of origin: French

The word hurt arrived in English in the early Middle Ages, most likely through Old French hurter, which meant 'to knock against' or 'to collide with', and which may in turn trace back to a Germanic or Celtic source describing a ram butting with its horns. In its earliest English use, around the 1200s, it carried the literal sense of striking, dashing, or knocking something violently. From that physical impact the meaning softened into the modern ideas of causing bodily injury and, later, of causing emotional pain. Because the word is short and entirely phonetic, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable for centuries. The same idea of a forceful blow survives in the related word 'hurtle', which still means to rush or crash forward at speed.

How the word is built

• hurt (single Old English root meaning to strike or harm; no prefix or suffix)