disturbance
noun
Simple meaning
A noisy commotion that causes a hubbub or interruption.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihsturbnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈstɝbn̩s
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The act of disturbing, being disturbed.
“That guy causes a lot of trouble, you know, he's such a disturbance.”
A noisy commotion that causes a hubbub or interruption.
An interruption of that which is normal or regular.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act of disturbing, being disturbed.
Used this way, disturbance is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“That guy causes a lot of trouble, you know, he's such a disturbance.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use disturbance
- “They were amazed by the furious disturbance they had caused.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any act of molesting, interrupting, hindering, agitating, or arousing from a state of repose or otherwise depriving inhabitants of the peace and quiet to which they are entitled.
Electrical signals produced by unwanted sources (atmospherics or receiver noise or unwanted transmitters).
Any mental disorder not caused by detectable organic abnormalities of the brain and in which a major disturbance of emotions is predominant.
A psychological disorder of thought or emotion.
An instance of agitation of the earth's crust.
A sudden violent disturbance.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.