hurt

Etymology 1

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 a reflex of an unrecorded Old English *hyrtan, which later merged with the Old French verb. Germanic cognates include Dutch horten (“to push against, strike”), Middle Low German hurten (“to run at, collide with”), Middle High German hurten (“to push, bump, attack, storm, invade”), Old Norse hrútr (“battering ram”). Alternate etymology traces Old Northern French hurter rather to Old Norse hrútr (“ram (male sheep)”), lengthened-grade variant of hjǫrtr (“stag”), from Proto-Germanic *herutuz, *herutaz (“hart, male deer”), which would relate it to English hart (“male deer”). See hart.

verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury.
   If anybody hurts my little brother, I will get upset.
   This injection might hurt a little.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To cause (somebody) emotional pain.
   He was deeply hurt he hadn’t been invited.
   The insult hurt.
3. (intransitive, stative) To be painful.
   Does your leg still hurt? / It is starting to feel better.
4. (transitive, intransitive) To damage, harm, impair, undermine, impede.
   This latest gaffe hurts the legislator’s reelection prospects still further.
   Copying and pasting identical portions of source code hurts maintainability, because the programmer has to keep all those copies synchronized.
   It wouldn't hurt to check the weather forecast and find out if it's going to rain.
   The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunying of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge 1568, William Cornishe, “A treatise betwene Trouth, and Information”, in J[ohn] S[tow], editor, Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate, London, →OCLC; republished as Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate to King Henry the VIIIth, London: Printed for C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, 1736, →OCLC, page 290

adj

1. Wounded, physically injured.
2. Pained.

noun

1. An emotional or psychological humiliation or bad experience.
   how to overcome old hurts of the past
   Jules Rimet still gleaming Thirty years of hurt Never stopped me dreaming 1996, “Three Lions”, performed by David Baddiel and Frank Skinner
2. (archaic) A bodily injury causing pain; a wound or bruise.
3. (archaic) Injury; damage; detriment; harm
4. (engineering) A band on a trip hammer's helve, bearing the trunnions.
5. A husk.

Etymology 2

Unclear. Suggestions include: from its resemblance to a blue hurtleberry, or from French heurt (a blow, leaving a blue bruise: compare the theories about golpe (“purple roundel”)).

noun

1. (heraldry) A roundel azure (blue circular spot).