Other forms: hurling, hurled, hurls
To hurl something is to throw it hard — arm right back, whole body behind it. A protester hurls a bottle, a toddler hurls a bowl of cereal at the wall, the sea hurls a boat onto the rocks.
You hurl words as well as objects: hurl abuse, hurl insults, hurl accusations across a courtroom. Hurl yourself at a door, or into a job, and the thing thrown is you. It is a regular verb — hurled, hurling — and it always carries force, so a gentle throw is never a hurl. In American speech hurl on its own means to vomit, which is worth knowing before you use it in a story. Keep it apart from hurtle: something hurtles down a hill by itself, with nobody throwing it.
1verbhurlTo throw something with great force.
“He hurled the empty can at the bin and missed by a metre.”
2verbshoutTo shout something angrily and violently at someone.
“The crowd hurled abuse at the referee for the whole second half.”
3verbyourselfTo throw yourself somewhere with sudden force.
“She hurled herself into the seat as the doors closed.”
Hurl comes from Middle English hurlen, and the word is imitative — it was made out of the noise of the thing, the rush and clatter of something flung. It keeps company with hurry and hurtle, two more words for fast violent movement grown from the same kind of sound.
Middle English
hurlen
English, today
hurl
Middle English hurlen, of imitative of the sound origin; compare hurry, hurtle.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Hitting & Pushing
First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word