disorient
Americanverb (used with object)
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to cause to lose one's way.
The strange streets disoriented him.
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to confuse by removing or obscuring something that has guided a person, group, or culture, as customs, moral standards, etc..
Society has been disoriented by changing values.
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Psychiatry. to cause to lose perception of time, place, or one's personal identity.
Etymology
Origin of disorient
1645–55; < French désorienter, equivalent to dés- dis- 1 + orienter to orient
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Young patrons in the bar, disoriented by the smoke and panic, tried to escape through the front door, causing a crush at the exit.
From Barron's
It is hard to believe that it’s been a full decade since Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s last feature film, 2016’s “The Neon Demon,” a disorienting treatise on fame and Los Angeles.
From Los Angeles Times
When Carman has tried to reduce her dose, she said, her body aches, she feels desperately tired and she becomes disoriented.
The smash-up of the fantastical and the familiar is disorienting and gets even stranger when the reckless kids start to whoop like they’re on Muscle Beach.
From Los Angeles Times
Some moments play out in too many close-ups, suffocating the scene; an occasional edit inadvertently disorients our sense of place.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
