perturbed
Americanadjective
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feeling or showing great concern or mental or emotional upset.
The heaviness of his step and the perturbed expression on his face told us that the captain was not in the best of moods.
-
greatly disordered or deranged.
He keeps using the same nonsensical phrases and the same perturbed logic, with no sense of the context of the discussion.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of perturbed
Explanation
Imagine a couple of snakes getting loose in a pet shop, and the manager running around trying to round up the snakes and calm down the customers, and you'll picture a perturbed person. Perturbed means flustered and confused. When you're perturbed, you're upset by something, and rattled enough by it to be thrown off your usual calmness into a state of confusion. In astronomy, perturbation is defined as "the effects on a large body when it is subjected to gravitational effects from more than one other large body." When a planet is perturbed in astronomy, it is pulled in different directions by strong forces, which is a great metaphor for what happens to a person who is perturbed.
Vocabulary lists containing perturbed
A Wrinkle in Time
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Intermediate, List 1
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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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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.
I obviously was perturbed by it, but I acted like I wasn’t.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 21, 2026
More curiously, even though U.S. high-yield spreads are at post-1998 lows, few investors seemed to be unduly perturbed here.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 18, 2025
Satan is also perturbed that some rando on Insta keeps commenting about sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s client list.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 24, 2025
Dubois, who has 22 wins in 24 fights as a professional, looked perturbed that his rival had stolen the limelight and walked off shaking his head.
From BBC • Jul. 18, 2025
In the past, Bobby had been perturbed by the constant criticism he received for his mode of dress.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
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.
