hurdle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Sports A light portable barrier over which competitors must leap in certain races.
2. n. Sports A race in which a series of such barriers must be jumped without the competitors' breaking their stride.
3. n. Sports A leaping step made off one foot as means of maximizing spring at the end of an approach, as to a dive.
4. n. An obstacle or difficulty to be overcome: the last hurdle before graduation.
5. n. Chiefly British A portable framework made of intertwined branches or wattle and used for temporary fencing.
6. n. Chiefly British A frame or sledge on which condemned persons were dragged to execution.
7. v. To leap over (a barrier) in or as if in a race.
8. v. To overcome or deal with successfully; surmount: hurdle a problem.
9. v. To leap over a barrier or other obstacle.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A movable frame made of interlaced twigs or sticks, or of bars, rods, or narrow boards, crossing each other.
2. n. Specifically— A sledge or frame on which criminals were formerly drawn to the place of execution.
3. n. In fortification, a collection of twigs or sticks interwoven closely and sustained by long stakes, made usually of a rectangular shape, 5 or 6 feet by 3½ feet, and serving to render works firm or to cover traverses and lodgments for the defense of workmen against fireworks or stones.
4. n. In agriculture: A frame usually made of wood, but sometimes of iron, for the purpose of forming temporary fences. When a fence is to be formed of hurdles, they are put down end to end, and fastened to the ground and to one another.
5. n. A space inclosed by hurdles: a fold.
6. n. A kind of permanent mattress of willow or other branches, built on a river-bank and fastened down with short sticks, to prevent the wearing away of the bank by the current of the stream.
7. n. In racing, a bar or frame placed across a race-course at a certain height, in semblance of a fence, to be cleared by the contesting men or horses.
8. n. In hat-making, a grid or frame of wood or wire, in which a mass of felting-hair is placed to be bowed.
9. To make, hedge, cover, or close with hurdles.
10. To jump over a hurdle, as in a hurdle-race; hence, to jump over anything as if it were a hurdle.

Wiktionary

1. n. An artificial barrier, variously constructed, over which men or horses jump in a race.
2. n. A perceived obstacle.
3. n. 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.
4. n. UK, obsolete A sled or crate on which criminals were formerly drawn to the place of execution.
5. v. To jump over something while running.
6. v. To compete in the track and field events of hurdles (e.g. high hurdles).
7. v. To overcome an obstacle.
8. v. To hedge, cover, make, or enclose with hurdles.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A movable frame of wattled twigs, osiers, or withes and stakes, or sometimes of iron, used for inclosing land, for folding sheep and cattle, for gates, etc.; also, in fortification, used as revetments, and for other purposes.
2. n. In England, a sled or crate on which criminals were formerly drawn to the place of execution.
3. n. An artificial barrier, variously constructed, over which men or horses leap in a race.
4. v. To hedge, cover, make, or inclose with hurdles.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a light movable barrier that competitors must leap over in certain races
2. n. an obstacle that you are expected to overcome
3. n. the act of jumping over an obstacle
4. v. jump a hurdle