Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To disturb greatly; make uneasy or anxious.
- v. To throw into great confusion.
- v. Physics & Astronomy To cause perturbation, as of a celestial orbit.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To disturb greatly; agitate; disquiet.
- To disorder; confuse; cause irregularity in.
Wiktionary
- v. To disturb; to bother or unsettle.
- v. physics To slightly modify the motion of an object.
- v. astronomy To modify the motion of a body by exerting a gravitational force.
- v. mathematics To modify slightly, such as an equation or value.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To disturb; to agitate; to vex; to trouble; to disquiet.
- v. rare To disorder; to confuse.
WordNet 3.0
- v. disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed
- v. throw into great confusion or disorder
- v. disturb or interfere with the usual path of an electron or atom
- v. cause a celestial body to deviate from a theoretically regular orbital motion, especially as a result of interposed or extraordinary gravitational pull
Etymologies
- From Middle English perturben, from Old French perturber, from Latin perturbare ("throw into confusion, confuse, disorder, disturb"), from per ("through") + turbare ("to confuse, disturb"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English perturben, from Old French perturber, from Latin perturbāre : per-, per- + turbāre, to throw into disorder (from turba, confusion, perhaps from Greek turbē). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“On the contrary, check which phone calls perturb your mental health and give you a headache.”
“It was an off the cuff remark, it was not meant to "perturb" you.”
“It used to kind of perturb me the way she'd say that.”
“It used to kind of perturb me the way she's say that.”
“In short, true believers are much less likely to have an Aunt Susan or pal Al to perturb their unquestioning faith.”
“The fact that they are unable to spend even their current budget properly doesn't perturb the bureaucrats.”
“In some sense, i suppose you could talk about the “stability” of the set of axioms defining your theory, i.e., how they behave if you “perturb” them — in some sense, a measure of how “robust” your chosen set of axioms is.”
“Nothing much, a bit of carelessness, yet enough to bring the professional wrath of Doctor Bicknell about his ears and to perturb the working of the staff and nurses for twenty-four hours to come.”
“His slightest frown might perturb them, his anger terrify them, his command compel them to certain death; yet, on the other hand, not one of them would have dreamed of addressing him otherwise than intimately by his first name, which name, "Hardman," was transmuted by their tongues into Kanaka”
“Fletcher's performance highlighted a problem that must perturb Redknapp despite his insouciance – Emmanuel Adebayor seems to be going off the boil.”
The Guardian: Adebayor goes off boil to leave Spurs short of steam against Wolves
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘perturb’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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common/uncommon GRE
Combination some common, some uncommon preparation of GRE words.
thwart, schmooze, siren, ebullient, eclectic, efficacy, adorn, felicitous, grandiloquent, eloquence, epitomize, vilify and 10 more...
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spelling list 17
appoint, assent, concur, consult, dissuade, flabbergast, haggle, perturb, procure, receptive, repudiate, resolve and 3 more...
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Vocab 17
my wordnic words
appoint, assent, concur, consult, dissuade, flabbergast, haggle, perturb, procure, receptive, repudiate, resolve and 3 more...
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Usable
heathery, delude, pander, revolute, affinity, perturb, dissuade, procure, salacious, counterbalance, listless, auspicate and 8 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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Kalli's Words
redundant, munchkin, escapade, natch, boom, fap, geek, nocturnal, pedantic, tactile, conversant, oxymoron and 188 more...
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GRE Reference
A list of words unfamiliar to me that I have repeatedly encountered in GRE question sets.
parochial, clique, salacious, aegis, ostracize, conceited, sacrilegious, inane, serendipity, gourmand, polemic, tenuous and 138 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more... -
generationnext's Words
petulant, vehement, pensive, lascivious, vacillate, histrionic, satiated, svelte, lithe, zeitgeist, viscous, sommelier and 526 more...
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Is it morning yet?
coterie, lexeme, counterbalance, forthright, pigtail, ponytail, french-braid, barrette, listless, counsel, sitting duck, dead duck and 268 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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wasserperson's Words
kakistocracy, telebomb, adroit, pensive, verbatim, asinine, anarchic, didactic, subsequent, mirthful, gregarious, sybarite and 102 more...
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curligirli0's Words
crapulous, swish, shiatsu, zen, xenoglossy, nincompoop, loquacious, pianissimo, onomatopoeia, imperturbable, silky, hosanas and 379 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for perturb.
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