What does hertz mean?
Word: Hertz
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Hertz means the unit used to measure frequency. One hertz means one complete wave or cycle every second.
Sounds like: hurts (a form of the verb hurt, as in 'this tight shoe hurts')
How do you spell hertz?
Syllables: hertz
Tricky part: It sounds exactly like hurts, so pupils often write a u. The vowel sound is spelt er.
Watch out for: hurtz, hirtz
Memory tip: The unit honours a German scientist, and German has an e in it, just as this word does - not the u of hurts.
Hertz in a sentence
Example 1: The tuning fork in the music room vibrates at 440 hertz.
Example 2: Noah's radio app shows each station's frequency in megahertz.
Example 3: The display on the speaker showed the deep bass note at 60 hertz.
Fun Fact
The unit is named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, who showed in the late 1880s that radio waves exist. Its plural stays the same: one hertz, fifty hertz.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Find the extra letter in the word:
hertze
a) e
b) h
c) z
d) t
Show answer
a) e. Like the surname it comes from, the unit has no e on the end.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
In our physics lesson, Noah measured the note from a guitar string and found it was about 110 herts, much lower than the whistle he tested next.
a) physics
b) whistle
c) guitar
d) herts
Show answer
d) herts. The unit is spelt exactly like the surname of the scientist it honours, Hertz.
Spell-o-Spell
Only one word in the list is misspelt. Choose the meaning of that word.
1. hertz 2. frequency 3. vibrasion 4. amplitude
a) the greatest distance a wave moves from its rest position
b) a rapid shaking movement back and forth
c) the unit for counting waves or cycles per second
d) the number of times something happens in a period
Show answer
b) a rapid shaking movement back and forth. Vibration ends in tion; hertz, frequency and amplitude are all spelt correctly.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Mains electricity in the UK runs at 50 hertz. This tells you how ____.
a) much power a kettle uses in a single hour
b) many times a second the current swings back and forth
c) hot the wires become when they are switched on
d) far the power travels from the power station
Show answer
b) many times a second the current swings back and forth
2. A kilohertz equals one thousand hertz. How many hertz are there in two kilohertz?
a) 200
b) 2,000
c) 20,000
d) 20
Show answer
b) 2,000
