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Hurdle   /hˈərdəl/   Listen
Hurdle

noun
1.
A light movable barrier that competitors must leap over in certain races.
2.
An obstacle that you are expected to overcome.
3.
The act of jumping over an obstacle.  Synonym: vault.



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"Hurdle" Quotes from Famous Books



... they were passing belongs to to the tribe of Wazaramo. It is covered with villages, the houses of which are mostly of a conical shape, composed of hurdle-work and plastered with clay, and thatched with grass or reeds. They profess to be the subjects of the Sultan of Zanzibar. They are arrant rogues, and rob travellers, when they can, by open violence. They always ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... In this may be found the secret of future marriage legislation. The young girls of Miletus delivered themselves from marriage by voluntary death; the senate condemned the suicides to be dragged naked on a hurdle, and the other virgins condemned ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... great hurdles to be made, and these were set in the river, and over them a causeway of boughs was laid, so that his cattle and spoils came safely across. Hence is the town of that place called to this day in Gaelic the City of the Hurdle Ford. ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston

... sentence is, that you Terence Bellew MacManus, you Patrick O'Donohoe, and you Thomas Francis Meagher, be taken hence to the place from whence you came, and be thence drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution; that each of you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that afterward the head of each of you shall be severed from the body, and the body of each divided into four quarters, to be disposed of as her Majesty may think ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... pines, and porticos, the sprawling children, barking dogs, peacocks sunning themselves, and partridges picking up grain, of his Pisan frescoes; yet others using the antique as mere pageant shows, allegorical mummeries, destined to amuse some Duke of Ferrara or Marquis of Mantua, together with the hurdle races of Jews, hags, and ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... hurdle six feet long and four and a half in depth, swung by a chain at either end from an oak laid across the channel. And the use of this hurdle is to keep our kine at milking time from straying away there drinking (for in truth they are very dainty) and to ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... signal given the bullock stands still, and the sportsman rests his gun upon his back and fires. They seldom miss. Others go with a fine buck and doe antelope, tame, and trained to browse upon the fresh bushes, which are woven for the occasion into a kind of hand-hurdle, behind which a man creeps along over the fields towards the herd of wild ones, or sits still with his matchlock ready, and pointed out through the leaves. The herd seeing the male and female strangers so very busily and agreeably employed ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... he had to put himself on that hurdle again, to stretch himself on that rack of torture! He tried to collect himself, to compose himself—and he drew himself up quickly; he heard the footsteps of the monk. The door opened, and, for the first time, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... "Victor Hugo has been pitiless—yes, pitiless—towards Marie Antoinette, by dragging over the hurdle the type of the Queen in the character ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... the Sovereign Council deal with delinquents. In 1735 it is enacted of a man who suicided, "that the corpse be tied to a cart, dragged on a hurdle, head down, face to ground, {191} through the streets of the town, to be hung up by the feet, an object of derision, then cast into the river in default of a cesspool." Criminals who evade punishment by flight are to be hanged in effigy. Montreal citizens are ordered to have ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... When I was in the Rifles they were quartered at Zante. Matilda was just then coming it rather strong with Villiers, of ours, a regular greenhorn. Fanny, also, nearly did for Harry Nesbitt, by riding a hurdle race. Then they left for Gibraltar, in the year,—what ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... hoard had been found in his possession, with a fragment of her shawl; and Sir John Vincent was very well aware of the mystery attending the old woman's death; besides, he was in a great hurry to be off; for Pointer, and Silliphant, and Lord George Pypp, were to have a hurdle race with him that day, for a heavy bet; so he really had not time to go deep into the matter; and the result of five minutes' talk before the magisterial chairs (Squire Ryle having been summoned to assist) was, that, on the accusation of Simon Jennings, Roger Acton was fully ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Guildford charity fete the winner of a hurdle race was awarded a new-laid egg. If he succeeds in winning it three years in succession it is to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... space, without a moment's delay, there was driven a low black cart, or hurdle as it was technically called, of the rudest construction, drawn by four powerful black horses, a savage-faced official guiding them by the ropes which supplied the place of reins. On this ill-omened vehicle there stood three persons, the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... The creatures moved quietly along, grazing and pawing now and then, darkening the plain almost as far as the eye could see. The trader spent several days with the tribe, and when he went south again he had a bundle of hides so large that he had to drag it on a kind of hurdle made of poles. He had helped the Indians decorate some of the hides they had, and whenever he did this he wrote his own name, the date, and a few words, somewhere on ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... the buts that rose from the platforms were made of wattle and hurdle-work. In different places calcined and agglutinated fragments have been picked up, and pieces of clay which had served as facing. The house to which they had belonged had been destroyed by fire, and the ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... solitary hurdle be set up in a meadow as a hiding-place from behind which to shoot the rabbits of a burrow, not one will come out within gun-shot that evening. They know-that it is something strange, the use of which they do not understand ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... visitors. On this particular occasion the cavalry drill was held in the great riding hall, and after the whole corps had completed their evolutions and were formed in line ready to be dismissed, the commanding officer ordered an extraordinarily high hurdle to be placed in position, and while the great throng of spectators were wondering what this meant they heard the sharp ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... not without a sigh on my part, one of the merriest six-hour rides that five yachtsmen, one cockney, five women and a child, the carman, and a countryman with an alpeen, ever took in their lives. The town of Killarney was in a violent state of excitement with a series of horse-races, hurdle-races, boat-races, and stag-hunts by land and water, which were taking place, and attracted a vast crowd from all parts of the kingdom. All the inns were full, and lodgings cost five shillings a day, nay, more in some places; for tho my landlady, Mrs. Macgillicuddy, charges but that sum, a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... suspensory ligament receives some heavy strains during certain attitudes which are taken by horses in hurdle jumping as is explained in detail by Montane and Bourdelle[26] under the description of this ligament. But in spite of the frequent and unusually heavy strains, which these structures receive, complete rupture is ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... also a watermelon hurdle race. The course was laid out with big watermelons and time ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt

... church. Edward persecuted Catholics. Mary persecuted Protestants. Elizabeth persecuted Catholics again. The father of those three sovereigns had enjoyed the pleasure of persecuting both sects at once, and had sent to death, on the same hurdle, the heretic who denied the real presence, and the traitor who denied the royal supremacy. There was nothing in England like that fierce and bloody opposition which, in France, each of the religious factions in its turn offered to the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... doctor, "it in no way affects your soul's salvation whether your body is cast into the fire and reduced to ashes or whether it is buried in the ground and eaten by worms, whether it is drawn on a hurdle and thrown upon a dung-heap, or embalmed with Oriental perfumes and laid in a rich man's tomb. Whatever may be your end, your body will arise on the appointed day, and if Heaven so will, it will come forth from its ashes ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... and willing hands lifted the wreck away piecemeal, and, under the direction of the doctor, got him out and placed him on a hurdle made soft with blankets and straw. He was insensible, but his face and head were uninjured, for he was found lying with his arms protecting both. Carefully they bore him to the vicarage, the vicar following, and his sister already at the door with ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... the first, and when I saw him ride I knew that I had also seen him ride before, but could not tell where. Only now has it come to me, and I know that in Yokohama I saw him within a year win the great hurdle-race of the English ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... its name to-day. The whole of the copse-wood where the mist had cleared returned purest tints of that hue, amid which Winterborne himself was in the act of making a hurdle, the stakes being driven firmly into the ground in a row, over which he bent and wove the twigs. Beside him was a square, compact pile like the altar of Cain, formed of hurdles already finished, which bristled on all ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... hurdle-maker in a corner; and then, regretting the publicity of his merriment, put his fingers bashfully to ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... holding on to nothing. He stopped his horse suddenly and made him stand almost perpendicular on his hind legs. Then, without the assistance of bridle, stirrup, or pommel, he secured his position and made the animal plunge wildly forward as if he were clearing a high hurdle, while he no more swerved from his seat than if he had been pinioned to it. Setting his horse again at his topmost bent, he took his pistol, threw it into the air, caught it on the fly, and finally hurled it with all his might in front of him. ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... shepherd on this particular night had stolen away (probably on a love-tryst): however, if the shepherd was gone, his sheep were not: and we found about fifty of them in the stall, which had recently been littered with fine clean straw. We clambered over the hurdle at the door; and made ourselves a warm cozy lair amongst the peaceful animals. Many times after in succeeding years Mr. Vanley assured me—that, although he had in India (as is well known to the public) enjoyed all the luxuries of a Nabob ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... a strange and cruel delimma. If it was dangerous to believe too much, it was equally dangerous to believe too little. Traitor and heretic were dragged to execution on the same hurdle; for Henry burned as heretics those who declared their belief in Protestantism, and hanged or beheaded, as traitors, those who acknowledged the authority of the Pope and denied the supremacy of the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... they afforded more amusement probably than is common at Epsom or Ascot. Every one knew everybody and everybody's horse; and as the horses were generally ridden by gentlemen, there was no doubt of fair play. There was an accident, as usual, in the hurdle-race; but not being fatal, it did not interrupt the sports. Large groups of the natives, sitting on the ground, or standing leaning on their spears, gave increased effect to the picturesque scenery. Some clumps of forest-trees still occupied ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... quite innocent object, and then using and retaining the power thus acquired for a real but undivulged purpose. Sheep, we are aware, never understand they are securely folded till the completing hurdle of the circuit is in its place, and then they soon forget it, and begin grazing; for all sheep want is grass, and perhaps a turnip or two to give content ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... Hunters, Jumpers, and Gaited Saddle Horses. Among special events in this section are the following: trot under saddle, one-mile track, one-mile military officer's race, one-mile mounted police race, gaited saddle race of one mile, steeple chase, hurdle race, polo pony dash, relay race of one mile, cowboy's relay race of same length, cowgirl's relay race, six furlongs, saddle tandem. Exposition jumping contest and five-mile Marathon four-in-hand. On the closing ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... proceedings according to my account, Mr. Elford dispatched a servant to the surgeon; and, having prepared a hurdle by way of litter, went with me and two of his men ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... anything else, endured the tyranny of compulsory oratory about a month, and then resolved to abolish the whole business by a general revolt. Big and little, we agreed to stand by each other, break up the new exercise, and get back to the old order of things—the hurdle races in mental arithmetic and the geographical chants which we could run and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... fences in a fly where the gate stands at the wrong corner of the field. Broad strips of turf fringe the road, offering every excuse for a gallop, and our guide continually turned through a gate or over a hurdle, and through half a dozen fields, to save two sides of an angle. These fields contrast strangely with the ancient counties—large, and square, and clean, with little ground lost in hedgerows. The great cop banks of Essex, Devon, and Cheshire are almost unknown—villages you ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... several tracks about Berlin. The Hoppegarten, devoted almost exclusively to flat racing; the Grunewald, the large popular track nearest to Berlin where both steeplechases and other races are held; and Karlshorst, devoted exclusively to steeplechasing and hurdle racing. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... remember—had to promise to drop him a line. Gianacchi was there, trying to treat Fillimore with coldness because the Sportsman had discovered too many virtues in his Gadfly, exalted her, indeed, into a favourite for Saturday's hurdle race, a notability for which Gianacchi felt himself too modest. "They say," Fillimore had written, "that the Gadfly has been seen jumping by moonlight"—the sort of the thing to spoil any book. Fillimore was an acute and weary-looking little man with a peculiarly sweet ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... these men, who had already in imagination secured to themselves an easy conquest. They were the warriors who had so recently been engaged in the manly yet innocent exercise of the ball; but, instead of the harmless hurdle, each now carried a short gun in one hand and a gleaming ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... kid had swiped the five-spot, it could be the counterman's problem of explaining to someone why he had overcharged. Jimmy's intelligence told him that countermen in a joint like this didn't expect tips, so he saved himself that hurdle. He left the place with a stomach full of food that only the indestructible stomach of a five-year-old could handle and now, fed and reasonably content, Jimmy began to seek his ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... is taken from a stream, a leaf screen must be placed at some distance in front of the inlet. This may be made of a hurdle fastened to strong stakes sunk into the bed of the stream. The opening of the inlet should be at least double the size of the sectional area of the pipe through which the water is carried to the ponds, ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker

... to speak, as the property (when he could afford a place to put her in) of Fred Booty. Ransome would no more have dreamed of cultivating an independent acquaintance with Maudie than he would of pocketing the silver cup that Booty won in last year's Hurdle Race. It was because of Maudie, and at Booty's irresistible request, that he, the slave of friendship, had consented, unwillingly and perfunctorily at first, to become Miss Dymond's cavalier. Maudie, also at Booty's passionate appeal, had for six months shared with Winny Dymond a room off Wandsworth ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... his party first shut up their horses in the old refectory, closing the entrance with a hurdle, and then dispersed over the ruins. Mary had brought her drawing-pad, that she might sketch a magnificent pillar, and the remains of a transept arch which rose gracefully behind it, crowned with drooping ivy, and disclosing in the back ground, through ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... hurdle-race through these gardens, a cat-walk along this wall, and a descent into the cutting," he reflected. "The walls look devilish high and the cutting devilish deep. Hang me if I know which ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... door of the hut opened, admitting a gleam of moonshine. The form of the retiring chief crossed it for an instant, the hurdle was then closed, and the shieling ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... displaced, and no drunkenness whatever. As striking a tribute, if rightly considered, as ever was exacted by a strong and winning personality! One of those oddities in which Dickens delighted was elicited by a hurdle race for strangers. The man who came in second ran 120 yards and leaped over ten hurdles with a pipe in his mouth and smoking it all the time. "If it hadn't been for your pipe," said the Master of Gadshill Place, clapping him on the shoulder at the winning-post, ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... butter the last day you worked?" asked the inquisitor so quickly and sharply that the victim of the thrust actually turned pale, in spite of a strong front of bravado. But he made a brave enough effort to get over the hurdle. ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield

... July, 1676, the Superior Criminal Court of Paris pronounced a verdict of guilty against her, for the murder of her father and brothers, and the attempt upon the life of her sister. She was condemned to be drawn on a hurdle, with her feet bare, a rope about her neck, and a burning torch in her hand, to the great entrance of the cathedral of Notre Dame, where she was to make the amende honorable in sight of all the people; to be taken ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... the leader of the detachment. "Let each team of two take alternately a plank and a hurdle." We load ourselves up. One of the two in each couple assumes the rifle of his partner as well as his own. The other with difficulty shifts and pulls out from the pile a long plank, muddy and slippery, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... applied in Australia to others quite different-as Wattle, a hurdle, applied as the name of the tree Wattle, from whose twigs the hurdle was most readily made; Jackass, an animal, used as the name for the bird Jackass; Cockatoo, a birdname, applied to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... he had had no right to bring this girl into such a fight. It was not her friend who was in danger at Bindon. Her life had been risked without due warrant. "I didn't know, or I wouldn't have asked it," he said in a low voice. "Lord, but you are a wonder—to take that hurdle for no one that belonged to you, and to do it as you've done it. This country will rise to you." He looked back on the raging rapids far behind, and he shuddered. "It was a close call, and no mistake. We must have been within a foot of down-you-go ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... on. Welch won the hundred by two yards and the quarter by twenty, and the other events fell in nearly every case to the favourite. The hurdles created something of a surprise—Jackson, who ought to have won, coming down over the last hurdle but two, thereby enabling Dallas to pull off an unexpected victory by a couple of yards. Vaughan's enthusiastic watch made the time a little under sixteen seconds, but the official timekeeper had other views. There were no instances of the timid new boy, at whom previously ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... bonnet over her head; and her legs, feet, and arms had likewise tar on them; the heat of the weather melting the tar, it ran over her face, so that she made a shocking appearance. She was put on a hurdle, and drawn on a sledge to the place of execution, which was very near the gallows. After spending some time in prayer, and singing a hymn, the executioner placed her on a tar barrel, about three feet high; a rope (which ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... were figures of policemen. Then, alongside that which they were carrying, she saw her aunt's blue dress. WHAT were they carrying like that? She dashed down the steps, and stopped. No! If it were HE they would bring him in! She rushed back again, distracted. She could see now a form stretched on a hurdle. It WAS he! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... so that it can barely be called a hedge, and where the elms draw the wind, the men of the family crowd over a smoky fire. In the wind and rain the fire could not burn at all had they not by means of a stick propped up a hurdle to windward, and thus sheltered it. As it is there seems no flame, only white embers and a flow of smoke, into which the men from time to time cast the dead wood they have gathered. Here the pot is boiled and the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... done by Hezekiah the king, but the sages praised him for three only:—(1.) He dragged the bones of his father Ahaz on a hurdle of ropes, for this they commended him; (2.) he broke to pieces the brazen serpent, for this they commended him; (3.) he hid the Book of Remedies, and for this too they praised him. For three they blamed him:—(1.) He stripped the doors of the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... khaki, she saw him: this time no indifference, no fusing him with the crowd, no letting him fade away unnoticed. If he had shaken before her on her hurdle-taker, she now shook before him in his brown regimentals. It was as if, in an instant, he had bolted from their familiar—their sometimes over-familiar—atmosphere. He confused, he perturbed her: he was so like, yet so different; so close, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... over the village on Sunday afternoon, and peeped into the cottages. All were neat and clean, with good dressers of crockery, the VERY poorest, like the worst in Weybridge sandpits; but they had no glass windows, only a wooden shutter, and no doors; a calico curtain, or a sort of hurdle supplying its place. The people nodded and said 'Good day!' but took no further notice of me, except the poor old Hottentot, who was seated on a doorstep. He rose and hobbled up to meet me and take my hand again. He seemed to enjoy being helped along ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... protected the land on either side of the road. Nearly behind the milestone there was a gap in this fence, partially closed by a hurdle. A half-ruined culvert, arching a ditch that had run dry, formed a bridge leading from the road to the field. Had the field been already chosen as a place of concealment by the police? Nothing was to be seen but a ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... indifferent to any circumstances—to be quite thoughtless as to draughts and chills, careless of heat, indifferent to the character of dinners, able to do well on hard, dry bread, capable of sleeping in the open under a rick, or some slight structure of a hurdle, propped on a few sticks and roughly thatched with straw, and to sleep sound as an oak, and wake strong as an oak in the morning-gods, what a glorious life! I envied them; they fancied I looked askance at their rags and jags. I envied them, ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... you: and I thanke you not. Thanke me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds, But fettle your fine ioints 'gainst Thursday next, To go with Paris to Saint Peters Church: Or I will drag thee, on a Hurdle thither. Out you greene sicknesse carrion, out you ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... the League, a private in the ranks, Mirabelle had made his house no more cheerful as a mausoleum; and when he considered what she might accomplish as a president, in charge of a sweeping blue-law campaign, his imagination refused to take the hurdle. ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall



Words linked to "Hurdle" :   obstacle, jump, obstruction, athletics, jumping, barrier, sport, hurdle race, overleap, hurdling, vault



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