hurry
pronunciation
How to pronounce hurry in British English:
UK [ˈhʌri]
How to pronounce hurry in American English:
US [ˈhɜːri]
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- Noun:
- a condition of urgency making it necessary to hurry
- overly eager speed (and possible carelessness)
- the act of moving hurriedly and in a careless manner
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- Verb:
- move very fast
- act or move at high speed
- urge to an unnatural speed
Word Origin
- hurry
- hurry: [16] The earliest known occurrences of the verb hurry are in the plays of Shakespeare, who uses it quite frequently. This suggests that it may have been a word well known to him in his native West Midland dialect, but it is not clear whether it is identical with the horye that occurs in a 14th-century Middle English poem from the same general area. A possible relative is Middle High German hurren ‘move quickly’.
- hurry (v.)
- 1590, first recorded in Shakespeare, who used it often; perhaps a variant of harry (v.), or perhaps a West Midlands sense of Middle English hurren "to vibrate rapidly, buzz," from Proto-Germanic *hurza "to move with haste" (cognates: Middle High German hurren "to whir, move fast," Old Swedish hurra "to whirl round"), which also perhaps is the root of hurl. Related: hurried; hurrying.
- hurry (n.)
- c. 1600, probably from hurry (v.).
Example
- 1. Some motorists were in too big of a hurry to stop .
- 2. Nor are they in a hurry to open up to an etymologist .
- 3. They believe mr strauss kahn then left in a hurry , leaving his mobile phone behind .
- 4. Since they were in a hurry , the shredders tended to stuff all the bits of a given document into a single bag .
- 5. The previous tenant was an investment firm that vacated the premises in such a hurry that half-eaten sandwiches were still on desks when groupon showed up .