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Hurdle vs. Hurtle
Indistinguishable in speech, the words hurtle and hurdle can be a confusing pair.
Hurtle is a verb with two meanings: "to move rapidly or forcefully," as in "The stone was hurtling through the air," and "to hurl or fling," as in "I hurtled the stone into the air." Note that the first use is intransitive: the stone isn't hurtling anything; it itself is simply hurtling. The second use is transitive: something was hurtled—in this case, a stone.
Hurdle is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, its most common meanings have to do with barriers: the ones that runners leap over, and the metaphorical extension of these, the figurative barriers and obstacles we try to similarly overcome. The verb hurdle has two meanings, and they are directly related to these. It can mean "to leap over especially while running," as in "She hurdled the fence," and it can mean "to overcome or surmount," as in "They've had to hurdle significant financial obstacles." The verb hurdle is always transitive; that is, there's always a thing being hurdled, whether it be a physical obstacle or a metaphorical one.
Synonyms
- barrel
- belt
- blast
- blaze
- blow
- bolt
- bomb [slang]
- bowl
- breeze
- bundle
- bustle
- buzz
- cannonball
- careen
- career
- chase
- course
- crack (on)
- dash
- drive
- fly
- hare
- hasten
- hie
- highball
- hotfoot (it)
- hump
- hurl
- hurry
- hustle
- jet
- jump
- motor
- nip
- pelt
- race
- ram
- rip
- rocket
- run
- rush
- rustle
- scoot
- scurry
- scuttle
- shoot
- speed
- step
- tear
- travel
- trot
- whirl
- whisk
- zip
- zoom
Examples of hurtle in a Sentence
Rachel Treisman, NPR, 24 Apr. 2024
While Hanuman is flying up to the sun, Indra, the king of the gods, strikes him with a thunderbolt, breaking his jaw and sending him hurtling to the ground.
—Aaron Boorstein, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Apr. 2024
With the 95,000-ton cargo ship Dali powerless and hurtling helplessly toward the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the harbor pilot commanding the vessel had just minutes to make his last, desperate attempts to avoid disaster.
—Joshua Goodman and Richard Lardner, Quartz, 29 Mar. 2024
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously sent Sherlock Holmes hurtling to his death over the Reichenbach Falls: His tiresome infallibility must have grated on Doyle, who saw himself as destined for a more highbrow literary fame than 19th-century detective fiction allowed.
—Hillary Kelly, The Atlantic, 11 Mar. 2024
No wonder, then, that the companies also became a useful symbol as the nation hurtled from election to war.
—Jon Grinspan, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Apr. 2024
Now the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees are hurtling toward a rematch in which the virus for most Americans is but a traumatic memory, markets are up and unemployment is at or near record lows.
—Zeke Miller, Fortune, 22 Mar. 2024
Donald Trump is hurtling toward a critical deadline in his most costly legal battle to date.
—Michael R. Sisak, Fortune, 20 Mar. 2024
And as the story hurtles toward 1970 (there’s a highly amusing space-race subplot), the powdery, gauzy town of Palm Beach becomes louder, zanier, and more outlandish—with preppy Lilly Pulitzer swapped out for psychedelic Pucci.
—Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, 20 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hurtle.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Hurtle.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hurtle. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.
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