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Hurdle vs. Hurtle
Indistinguishable in speech, the words hurtle and hurdle can be a confusing pair.
Hurtle is a verb with two meanings: "to move rapidly or forcefully," as in "The stone was hurtling through the air," and "to hurl or fling," as in "I hurtled the stone into the air." Note that the first use is intransitive: the stone isn't hurtling anything; it itself is simply hurtling. The second use is transitive: something was hurtled—in this case, a stone.
Hurdle is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, its most common meanings have to do with barriers: the ones that runners leap over, and the metaphorical extension of these, the figurative barriers and obstacles we try to similarly overcome. The verb hurdle has two meanings, and they are directly related to these. It can mean "to leap over especially while running," as in "She hurdled the fence," and it can mean "to overcome or surmount," as in "They've had to hurdle significant financial obstacles." The verb hurdle is always transitive; that is, there's always a thing being hurdled, whether it be a physical obstacle or a metaphorical one.
Examples of hurtle in a Sentence
Lewis Gordon, Vulture, 23 May 2025
Any adrenaline built from hurtling your truck around is sucked into a void.
—Joshua Lamb, Forbes.com, 20 May 2025
Whipping winds hurtled cash into a busy intersection during an ATM delivery in upstate New York on Tuesday, and several passersby scooped up some of the bills, according to police.
—Jenna Sundel, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 Apr. 2025
This is because the debris is hurtling around at 10km/second, or more than ten times the speed of a bullet.
—Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, 12 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hurtle
Cite this Entry
“Hurtle.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hurtle. Accessed 3 Jun. 2025.
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