hurdle

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: hûr'dəl, IPA^(key): /ˈhɜːdl̩/
• (General American) enPR: hûr'dəl, IPA^(key): /ˈhɝd(ə)l/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dəl
• Homophone: hurtle (t/d-flapping dialects)
• Hyphenation: hurd‧le

Weaving a hurdle dead hedge

Wattle hurdle

Athletes in hurdles race

From Middle English hurdel, hirdel, herdel, hyrdel, from Old English hyrdel (“frame of intertwined twigs used as a temporary barrier”), diminutive of *hyrd, from Proto-Germanic *hurdiz, from Pre-Germanic *kr̥h₂tis, from Proto-Indo-European *kreh₂-. Cognate with Dutch horde, German Hürde.

hurdle (plural hurdles)

1. (athletics, equestrianism) An artificial barrier, variously constructed, over which athletes or horses jump in a race.

   He ran in the 100 metres hurdles.

2. (figuratively) An obstacle, real or perceived, physical or abstract.
   • 2005, Bill Clinton, My Life‎, volume II, New York: Vintage Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 588:

     My last stop was an outdoor speech to a huge crowd of Ukrainians whom I urged to stay on the course of freedom and economic reform. Kiev was beautiful in the late spring sunshine, and I hoped its people could keep up the high spirits I had observed in the crowd. They still had many hurdles to clear.

3. A movable frame of wattled twigs, osiers, or withes and stakes, or sometimes of iron, used for enclosing land, for folding sheep and cattle, for gates, etc.; also, in fortification, used as revetments, and for other purposes.
   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 414:

     The practice of folding sheep was general, and the purchase of hurdles was a regular charge in the shepherd's account.

4. (UK, historical) A sled or crate on which criminals were drawn to the place of execution.
   • 1550, Francis Bacon, “A Preparation Toward the Union of Laws”, in James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, Douglas Denon Heath, editors, The Works of Francis Bacon‎, volume VII, London: Longman, Green & Co., page 735:

     In treason, the corporal punishment is by drawing on hurdle from the place of the prison to the place of execution, and by hanging and being cut down alive, bowelling, and quartering: and in women by burning.

   • 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, II.i:

     Such a crew! Ah! many a wretch has rid on hurdles who has done less mischief than these utterers of forged Tales, coiners of Scandal, and clippers of Reputation.

   • 1851, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 21, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume IV, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     Hurdles, with four, five, six wretches convicted of counterfeiting or mutilating the money of the realm, were dragged month after month up Holborn Hill. On one morning seven men were hanged and a woman burned for clipping

   • 1855, Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead, Part II, in The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840-1867, Oxford University Press, 1909, pp. 250-51,

     Behind flock'd wrangling up a piteous crew, / Greeted of none, disfeatur'd and forlorn— / Cowards, who were in sloughs interr'd alive: / And round them still the wattled hurdles hung / Wherewith they stamp'd them down, and trod them deep, / To hide their shameful memory from men.

• See also Thesaurus:hindrance

• → Japanese: ハードル (hādoru)

hurdle (third-person singular simple present hurdles, present participle hurdling, simple past and past participle hurdled)

1. To jump over something while running.

   He hurdled the bench in his rush to get away.

2. To compete in the track and field events of hurdles (e.g. high hurdles).
3. To overcome an obstacle.
4. To hedge, cover, make, or enclose with hurdles.
   • 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the book number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve
     In hurdled cotes amid the field secure

• Hurdle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

hurdle (plural hurdles)

1. (T-flapping) Misspelling of hurtle.

hurdle (third-person singular simple present hurdles, present participle hurdling, simple past and past participle hurdled)

1. (T-flapping) Misspelling of hurtle.

• huldre, hurled