Which to use
“hurdles” is a noun and “hurled” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,138
- “hurdles” frequency rank
- #26,121
- “hurled” frequency rank
- 40259
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hurdles | hurled |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A sport where athletes or animals run along a track obstructed by regularly placed hurdles that must be leapt over. | simple past and past participle of hurl |
Letter map: hurdles vs hurled
Shared letters muted; letters that set hurdles and hurled apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. hurdles runs 7 letters (CVCCCVC) against hurled's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for hurdles / hurled
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hurdles is anoun and hurledaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40259, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hurdles is recorded at frequency rank #14,138, classified as anoun. hurled is at rank #26,121, tagged as averb, pronounced /hɜːld/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 40259, this pair ranks #269,182 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hurdles vs hurled
Shared letters: dehlru. Private to "hurdles": s. Private to "hurled": -.
"hurdles" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC · "hurled" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "hurdles" and "hurled" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "hurdles" vs "hurled" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "hurdles" and "hurled". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "hurdles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hurled" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #269,182 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hurdles" and "hurled" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hued vs hurled". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #269,182 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.