hurdle
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: hûr'dəl
ipa: /ˈhɜːdl̩/
enpr: hûr'dəl
ipa: /ˈhɝd(ə)l/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dəl
homophone: hurtle stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
Forms: form: hurdles
Etymology: ]
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.
Senses: examples: text: He ran in the 100 metres hurdles.
topics: athletics
equestrianism
hobbies
horses
lifestyle
pets
sports
glosses: An artificial barrier, variously constructed, over which athletes or horses jump in a race.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2005, Bill Clinton, My Life, volume II, New York: Vintage Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 588:
glosses: An obstacle, real or perceived, physical or abstract.
examples: text: The practice of folding sheep was general, and the purchase of hurdles was a regular charge in the shepherd's account.
ref: 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 414:
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, II.i:
text: 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
ref: 1851, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XXI, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume IV, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1855, Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead, Part II, in The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840-1867, Oxford University Press, 1909, pp. 250-51, https://archive.org/details/cu31924013206499
glosses: A sled or crate on which criminals were drawn to the place of execution.
examples: text: Pieces that can move only by hopping over other pieces are termed Hoppers. It should be noted that hoppers capture in the usual way by eviction, they do not capture the hurdles over which they hop.
The most popular hoppers are: The Equihopper (G. Leathem FCR 1938) which hops to the same distance beyond the hurdle as it is from it.
ref: 2010 August 21, G. P. Jelliss, “Simple Chess Variants”, in Mayhematics, page 10:
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: A piece that is jumped over by a hopper piece.
Derived terms: fall at the final hurdle
fall at the last hurdle
hurdlemaker
hurdler
hurdlesome
hurdlework