disturbed
Americanadjective
-
marked by symptoms of mental illness.
a disturbed personality.
-
agitated or distressed; disrupted.
disturbed seas; a disturbed situation.
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of disturbed
Explanation
If something is disturbed, it's been moved or changed — it's not positioned or functioning the way it usually does. Traveling across the globe gives many people disturbed sleep patterns. If your younger brother has been snooping in your room, the only evidence might be the disturbed items on your desk — maybe he rifled through your diary and left it in a different spot. When people are described as disturbed, it means they're troubled emotionally. The word comes from the Latin disturbare, "throw into disorder," and its root turba, "turmoil."
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.
"We're extremely anxious, disturbed," said Zikri, urging the government to "pay more attention."
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026
Rania Batrice, a Palestinian American political strategist who was a deputy campaign manager for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, was disturbed.
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2026
Their movement disturbed the orbits of smaller objects, setting off catastrophic collisions and producing brief periods filled with large amounts of dust, similar to what astronomers now observe in extreme debris disks.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 7, 2026
Adolfina Kum believes communities "lose an important source of strength" when sacred mountains, forests or ancestral places are disturbed.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026
Bat peered into the pouch to see if Thor had been disturbed by the movement, but the kit was still fast asleep.
From "A Boy Called Bat" by Elana K. Arnold
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
