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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.
Examples of hurtle in a Sentence
Max Butterworth, NBC news, 19 Mar. 2026
There is something inherently terrifying about a supermassive black hole hurtling through space at an excess of three million kilometers per hour.
—Phil Plait, Scientific American, 13 Mar. 2026
The action sequence culminates with the bad guys crashing, hurtling 20 feet in the air — and into the landmark Hill Valley clocktower.
—Kathleen Perricone, Entertainment Weekly, 12 Mar. 2026
Though the tiny asteroid posed no threat to Earth, NASA had set out to test a method of deflecting and changing the path of threatening objects hurtling toward Earth.
—Eric Lagatta, USA Today, 10 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for hurtle
Cite this Entry
“Hurtle.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hurtle. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026.
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