Other forms: hurtling, hurtled, hurtles
To hurtle is to move very fast and out of control. Speed with no steering.
The lack of control is essential, which is what separates hurtling from racing, and it usually ends badly. It takes towards, down or past, so a car hurtles down a hill and a boulder hurtles past. The word suits objects more than people. Take care with hurl, which means to throw hard and is a different word, though the two are close in sound and in violence.
1verbhurtleTo move at great speed and without control.
“The trolley hurtled across the car park.”
Hurtling was colliding. Middle English hurtlen meant to clash, to knock down or to push, a frequentative of hurten, to hurt, so the speed in the word comes from the crash at the end of it.
Middle English
hurtelen
English, today
hurtle
Built from
The verb is derived from Middle English hurtelen, hurtlen (“to cast, hurl, throw; to charge at; to clash in combat, fight; to collide; to injure; to knock down; to propel, push, thrust; to rush; to stumble”)hortel, hurtel, from hurten (“to injure, wound, hurt (physically or figuratively); to damage, impair; to hurt one’s feelings, humiliate; to receive an injury; to collide into; to propel, push, thrust; to stumble”) (see further at English hurt) + -el-, -elen. The English word is analysable as hurt + le. The noun is derived from the verb.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA