• (RP) IPA: /hɜːtl/
• (America) IPA: /hɝtl/

hurtle (hurtles, present participle hurtling; past and past participle hurtled)

1. (intransitive) To move rapidly, violently, or without control.

   The car hurtled down the hill at 90 miles per hour.

   Pieces of broken glass hurtled through the air.

2. (intransitive, archaic) To meet with violence or shock; to clash; to jostle.

   • Together hurtled both their steeds.

3. (intransitive, archaic) To make a threatening sound, like the clash of arms; to make a sound as of confused clashing or confusion; to resound.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Ivlivs Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene ii]:

     The noise of battle hurtled in the air.

   • The earthquake sound / Hurtling 'neath the solid ground.

4. (transitive) To hurl or fling; to throw hard or violently.

   He hurtled the wad of paper angrily at the trash can and missed by a mile.

5. (intransitive, archaic) To push; to jostle; to hurl.

• French: élancer, foncer
• German: rasen, sausen, schleudern, fliegen
• Russian: мча́ться

• German: zusammenprallen, zusammenknallen

• German: grummeln, dröhnen, dumpf tönen

• German: schleudern, schmeißen

hurtle (plural hurtles)

1. A fast movement in literal or figurative sense.
   • 1975, John Wakeman, Literary Criticism

     But the war woke me up, I began to move left, and recent events have accelerated that move until it is now a hurtle.

   • 2005, June 20, The Guardian

     Jamba has removed from Marlowe's Doctor Faustus all but the barest of essentials - even half its title, leaving us with an 80-minute hurtle through Faustus's four and twenty borrowed years on earth.

2. A clattering sound.
   • 1913, Eden Phillpotts, Widecombe Fair, page 26

     There came a hurtle of wings, a flash of bright feathers, and a great pigeon with slate-grey plumage and a neck bright as an opal, lit on a swaying finial.