different between hurst vs durst

English

Etymology

From Middle English hirst (“wood, grove; hillock; sandbank, sandbar”), from Old English hyrst (“hillock, eminence, height, wood, wooded eminence”), from Proto-West Germanic *hursti; akin to Dutch horst (“thicket; bird's nest”), German Horst (“thicket, nest”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /h?st/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /h??st/
• Rhymes: -??(?)st

Noun

hurst (plural hursts)

1. (rare outside place names) A wood or grove.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion song 2 p. 27[1]:

     Where, to her neighboring Chase, the curteous Forrest show’d

     So just conceived joy, that from each rising a hurst,

     Where many a goodlie Oake had carefullie been nurst,

   • 2000, Grazing Ecology and Forest History ?ISBN, page 150:

     A blackthorn seedling can in this way expand into a hurst of 0,1-0, 5 ha in the space of 10 years, […]

Translations

Anagrams

• Hurts, Stuhr, Thurs, hurts

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?st/
• Rhymes: -??(?)st

Verb

durst

1. (archaic, literary) simple past tense of dare
   • Traditional rhyme

     Four and twenty tailors went to kill a snail; the best man among them durst not touch her tail.

   • 1595, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 2, Scene 2, lines 82-83

     Pretty soul! She durst not lie / Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.

   • 1634, John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen Act 3, Scene 2

     That thou durst, Arcite!

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost Book I, line 49

     Who durst defy th' omnipotent to arms.

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. 6, Monk Samson

     Coming home, therefore, I sat me down secretly under the Shrine of St. Edmund, fearing lest our Lord Abbot should seize and imprison me, though I had done no mischief; nor was there a monk who durst speak to me, nor a laic who durst bring me food except by stealth.

   • 1883: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey were talking together on the quarter-deck, and, anxious as I was to tell them my story, I durst not interrupt them openly.

   • 1896, A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, XXX, lines 1-2:

     Others, I am not the first,

     Have willed more mischief than they durst

Usage notes

• The second-person singular (thou being the subject) no longer adds -est (as it did in Early Modern English).

Derived terms

• durstn't/dursn't/dursen't

Anagrams

• turds