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PlainSpell

hurt

UK /hɜːt/verb, adjective, noun

hurt is spelled H-U-R-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 87 times per million words in written English, the 1,223rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, hurt means “To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in hurt?

Letters4: H-U-R-T
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing87 times per million words; the 1,223rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is hurt?

Hurt appears 87 times per million words in written English, the 1,223rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce hurt?

  • UK /hɜːt/
  • British /həːt/
  • /heːt/

Hurt has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-hurt.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with hurt?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as hurt (/ɜt/).

Spelled with the same letters in another order: ruth, thru.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of hurt

  • hurts present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • hurting participle, present
  • more hurt comparative
  • most hurt superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does hurt mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

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

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

  2. 2

    To cause (somebody) emotional pain.

    He was deeply hurt he hadn’t been invited.

  3. 3

    To be painful.

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

  4. 4

    To damage, harm, impair, undermine, impede.

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

adjective

  1. 1

    Wounded, physically injured.

  2. 2

    Feeling physical or emotional pain.

noun

  1. 1

    An emotional or psychological humiliation or bad experience.

    how to overcome old hurts of the past

  2. 2

    archaicA bodily injury causing pain; a wound or bruise.

  3. 3

    archaicInjury; damage; detriment; harm

  4. 4

    A band on a trip hammer's helve, bearing the trunnions.

  5. 5

    A husk.

  6. 6

    A roundel azure (blue circular spot).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Hurt in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfaire mal (to be painful, to ache), blesser (to cause physical pain and/or injury), blessé (wounded, injured), heurte (blue roundel)
Germanweh tun, schmerzen (to be painful, to ache), verletzen (to cause physical pain and/or injury), verletzt (wounded, injured), quälen (to cause emotional pain – see also shame)
Portuguesedoer (to be painful, to ache), ferir, machucar, aleijar (to cause physical pain and/or injury), machucado (wounded, injured), magoar (to cause emotional pain – see also shame)
Spanishdoler (to be painful, to ache), lastimar, hacer, causar daño, ferir, adolecer (to cause physical pain and/or injury)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does hurt come from?

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”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after hurt