Meaning & use
hurt their feelings
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Meaning
phraseidiom
To make someone feel sad, upset, or embarrassed by what you say or do.
Grammar: The possessive changes to match the person: hurt my feelings, hurt her feelings, hurt their feelings.
Patterns
- hurt someone's feelings
- hurt my feelings
- hurt your feelings
I didn't mean to hurt your feelings when I said I was too busy to talk.
She was afraid that telling the truth would hurt his feelings.
He apologized for hurting their feelings at the party.
Common combinations
- hurt someone's feelings
- Be careful not to hurt your sister's feelings.
- easily hurt
- His feelings are easily hurt, so speak gently.
- hurt someone's feelings deeply
- The criticism hurt her feelings deeply.
- sorry for hurting someone's feelings
- I'm sorry for hurting your feelings yesterday.
Synonyms and how they differ
- offend
- Offend is stronger and more formal; it suggests breaking a rule of politeness, while hurt feelings focuses on emotional pain.
- upset
- Upset is more general and can mean worried or annoyed, not just sad from a personal remark.
- wound
- Wound is literary and suggests a deep, lasting emotional injury, much stronger than hurt feelings.
Opposites
Word family
- hurtful adjective
- Causing emotional pain; a hurtful remark hurts someone's feelings.
- hurtfully adverb
- In a way that causes emotional pain.
Commonly confused: hurt their feelings or hurt?
hurt their feelings vs hurt
Hurt can mean physical pain (my arm hurts) or emotional pain; hurt their feelings is only the emotional meaning and needs a person as the object.
Practice
She didn't want to ___ his feelings, so she said she liked the gift.
Choose one answer.
After 'to' we need the base form 'hurt'. 'Hurting' is wrong because 'to' is not a preposition here; 'hurts' is wrong because the subject is 'she' and the verb follows 'to'; 'hurted' is not a real word.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hurt their feelings”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.