hurt

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to give trouble or pain to

   This exercise will hurt your back.

2. 2
   verb

   to cause damage or affect negatively

   Our business was hurt by the new competition.

3. 3
   verb

   to hurt the feelings of

   They hurt me when they did not include me among their guests.

4. 4
   verb

   feel physical pain

   Were you hurting after the accident?

5. 5
   verb

   To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury.

   If anybody hurts my little brother, I will get upset.

6. 6
   verb

   To cause (somebody) emotional pain.

   He was deeply hurt he hadn’t been invited.

7. 7
   verb

   To be painful.

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

8. 8
   verb

   To damage, harm, impair, undermine, impede.

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

Etymology

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”), cognate with Welsh hwrdd (“ram”) and Cornish hordh (“ram”). Compare Proto-Germanic *hrūtaną, *hreutaną (“to fall, beat”), from Proto-Indo-European *krew- (“to fall, beat, smash, strike, break”); however, the earliest instances of the verb in Middle English are as old as those found in Old French, which leads to the possibility that the Middle English word may instead be…