flustered
Americanadjective
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of flustered
Explanation
To be flustered is to lose your cool. When you're flustered, you're embarrassed, agitated, or just confused. If your pants fell down in the middle of class while you were giving a presentation, you'd probably be flustered: highly embarrassed, out of breath, and a little freaked out. It's hard to concentrate when you're flustered — it's a distracting state of mind. Being flustered isn't quite as bad as being panicked, but it's close. People can also get flustered by good things, like if someone you had a crush on kissed you.
Vocabulary lists containing flustered
The Giver
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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
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The City of Ember
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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.
And Wall Street has pointedly refused to be flustered by the conflict in recent weeks, particularly after excitement over robust corporate earnings.
From Barron's • May 11, 2026
You arrive to the therapist’s office, perhaps anxious, flustered, maybe numb.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 16, 2026
After she says she is, in a flustered tone, he sarcastically asks: “You don’t sound sure. Want to make a phone call?”
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 24, 2026
When Barrett came into the shop, Hutchcroft says Barrett was flustered and told her she needed to someone to look after the dogs while she went to Harrods.
From BBC • Mar. 14, 2026
She stared at her notes for a few moments, brought the pen to the board, made a mark, then got flustered and made some notations in the white space beyond the graph, and tried again.
From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely
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.
