| / English Dictionary |
PERTURBED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Thrown into a state of agitated confusion; ('rattled' is an informal term)
Synonyms:
flustered; hot and bothered; perturbed; rattled
Classified under:
Similar:
discomposed (having your composure disturbed)
Domain usage:
colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb perturb
Context examples:
The bright clouds form when the flow of ambient air is perturbed and diverted upward over the dark vortex, causing gases to freeze into methane ice crystals.
(Hubble Reveals Dynamic Atmospheres of Uranus, Neptune, NASA)
His face was burned of a reddish colour, as bright as a flower-pot, and in spite of his age (for he was only forty at the time of which I speak) it was shot with lines, which deepened if he were in any way perturbed, so that I have seen him turn on the instant from a youngish man to an elderly.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
If the planet got them later in life, the rings could have formed when small, icy moons in orbit around Saturn collided, perhaps because their orbits were perturbed by a gravitational tug from a passing asteroid or comet.
(Saturn is Losing Its Rings, NASA)
In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on nothing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute the letter was unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she could, she again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Often, of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful dilation of his eye.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
So he sat at table, perturbed by his own unfitness and at the same time charmed by all that went on about him.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
“I—I confess I hardly do understand,” she hesitated, a perturbed but not frightened expression in her eyes.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Talking wearied her, faces troubled her, pain claimed her for its own, and her tranquil spirit was sorrowfully perturbed by the ills that vexed her feeble flesh.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
It was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling in, dangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very perturbed expression upon his aristocratic features.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Nor did he like it when the man-animals arose and went on with their march; for a tiny man-animal took the other end of the stick and led Kiche captive behind him, and behind Kiche followed White Fang, greatly perturbed and worried by this new adventure he had entered upon.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
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