A small wood or grove, especially one on a hill. Often appears in English place names and surnames.
From Old English hyrst meaning 'wood, wooded hill, grove.' Related to German Horst meaning 'thicket' and ultimately from Proto-Germanic *hursti-. The word survived primarily in place names and surnames after falling out of common use.
Hurst is a beautiful example of how landscape words can outlive their common usage by hiding in place names - from Pinehurst to Sandhurst, this Old English word for 'small wood' dots the map like linguistic fossils. It's particularly common in surnames, suggesting many English families were once identified by the grove or small forest where they lived.
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