hurt

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To cause physical pain or injury to someone.

   If anybody hurts my little brother, I will be very upset.

2. 2
   verb

   To feel pain in a part of your body.

   Does your leg still hurt?

3. 3
   verb

   To make someone feel emotional pain or upset.

   He was deeply hurt that he hadn't been invited.

4. 4
   verb

   To have a bad effect on something; to harm or damage it.

   Our business was hurt by the new competition.

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…

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