hurt
/hɜːt/
"hurt" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hurt” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #1,224. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #1,224
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hurt · hurt · English
hurt · rank #1,224 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,224
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH growing
Nearest frequency peer: growing (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “hurt”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- floor
floor
98,780 corpus weight
- France
France
98,779 corpus weight
- growing
growing
98,778 corpus weight
- hurt
hurt
98,777 corpus weight
- image
image
98,776 corpus weight
- insurance
insurance
98,775 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “hurt” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hurt |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /hɜːt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,224 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hurt” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around hurt (IPA /hɜːt/), averb. Corpus frequency is #1,224 among 2,646 “H” headwords. Wiktionary lists 4 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for hurt, with forms such as "hhurt", "hrut", and "hurrt". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hut", "Hus", "Huw", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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… The correct English form is hurt, spelled H-U-R-T.
Definition
- 1To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury.
- 2To cause (somebody) emotional pain.
- 3To be painful.
- 4To damage, harm, impair, undermine, impede.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hurt appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
If anybody hurts my little brother, I will get upset.
This injection might hurt a little. Your arm will be hurting you for a while.
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 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.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- hhurt
- hrut
- hurrt
- hurtt
- hutr
- uhrt
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of hurt - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "hurt"?
What does "hurt" mean?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hurt", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "hurt". Here's where to go from here.
- "hurt" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "hut". View pair
- 6 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #1,224 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "H" letter cohort. H–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.