Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To move with or as if with great speed.
  • intransitive verb To fling with great force; hurl.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To dash, push, or knock violently; throw or hurl.
  • To move about with violence or impetuosity; whirl round; brandish.
  • To rush violently and noisily; move rapidly and impetuously; go swiftly with a whirring, clashing, or clattering sound.
  • noun A pimple or wart.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To meet with violence or shock; to clash; to jostle.
  • intransitive verb To move rapidly; to wheel or rush suddenly or with violence; to whirl round rapidly; to skirmish.
  • intransitive verb To make a threatening sound, like the clash of arms; to make a sound as of confused clashing or confusion; to resound.
  • transitive verb obsolete To move with violence or impetuosity; to whirl; to brandish.
  • transitive verb To push; to jostle; to hurl.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To move rapidly, violently, or without control.
  • verb intransitive, archaic To meet with violence or shock; to clash; to jostle.
  • verb intransitive, archaic To make a threatening sound, like the clash of arms; to make a sound as of confused clashing or confusion; to resound.
  • verb transitive To hurl or fling; to throw hard or violently.
  • verb intransitive, archaic To push; to jostle; to hurl.
  • noun A fast movement in literal or figurative sense.
  • noun A clattering sound.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make a thrusting forward movement
  • verb move with or as if with a rushing sound
  • verb throw forcefully

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English hurtlen, to collide, frequentative of hurten, to knock against, damage; see hurt.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word hurtle.

Examples

  • Our next hurtle is getting H. Res 111 out of the Rules committee.

    Dooley, James E. 1990

  • Rocketman on Jun 7, 2008 what's a "hurtle"? christian on Jun 7, 2008

    Jon Favreau Starts Talking the Future of Iron Man « FirstShowing.net 2008

  • It really is a miracle of engineering that anything so huge, so luxurious, so fantastically adapted to the health and comfort of human beings, should be able to "hurtle" (pardon the word) through space.

    Podkayne Of Mars Heinlein, Robert A. 1963

  • Even grown dogs might hurtle him backward or sideways with the impact of their heavy bodies; and backward or sideways he would go, in the air or sliding on the ground, but always with his legs under him and his feet downward to the mother earth.

    The Outcast 2010

  • Now, with issue #10, things are racing towards a dramatic conclusion as the events of the past 9 issues hurtle the crew towards what is now know as the “cylon apocalypse” (as seen in the re-imagined mini-series) and the reasons for the decommissioning of the Galactica are about to be revealed!

    Dynamite Sneak Peek: Battlestar Galactica: Season Zero #10 | Major Spoilers - Comic Book Reviews and News 2009

  • The two young protagonists are from politically active families on opposite sides of the divide, but are childhood friends and hurtle to a tragic conclusion.

    January Books 17) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams nwhyte 2010

  • They speed down one narrow side street, turn abruptly, then hurtle down another, but these maneuvers are not enough for them to elude her pursuers; she can see their headlights in the side-view mirrors, vanishing as they round a corner, only to reappear a split second later.

    William and Kate Christopher Andersen 2011

  • Most fatal accidents in Delhi occur in the small hours, when fast cars driven by young, wealthy and often drunk men hurtle across the city.

    Delhi's traffic chaos has a character of its own | Jason Burke 2011

  • Bodies hurtle, armor clanks, force fields spark, vortexes swirl, oceans roil, warriors freeze and defrost, and none of it conveys a scintilla of feeling.

    'Thor': A Vehicle of Low Norsepower Joe Morgenstern 2011

  • They speed down one narrow side street, turn abruptly, then hurtle down another, but these maneuvers are not enough for them to elude her pursuers; she can see their headlights in the side-view mirrors, vanishing as they round a corner, only to reappear a split second later.

    William and Kate Christopher Andersen 2011

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "A couple of hours after that 6-4 loss, the Angels suffered a loss much more painful and lasting. A van driven by Andrew Thomas Gallo, a 22-year-old Riverside resident, ran a red light at the Fullerton intersection of Lemon and Orangethorpe and slammed the two-door Eclipse in which Adenhart was a passenger, hurtling it against a telephone pole."

    - Tom Singer, Angels' Adenhart killed in accident mlb.com, 9 April 2009.

    May 13, 2009

  • Interesting; I've not seen that transitive use of it before.

    May 14, 2009

  • Might just be sportswriter hyperbole.

    May 14, 2009

  • I've heard it used a number of times in an astronomical context.

    May 15, 2009