unbalance
verb
Simple meaning
Derange mentally, throw out of mental balance.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnbaluhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ənˈbæləns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Derange mentally, throw out of mental balance; make insane
“The death of his parents unbalanced him.”
Throw out of balance or equilibrium
“The tax relief unbalanced the budget.”
transitive
To cause to be out of balance.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Derange mentally, throw out of mental balance; make insane
Used this way, unbalance is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“The death of his parents unbalanced him.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- 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 unbalance
- “The death of his parents unbalanced him.”verb
- “The tax relief unbalanced the budget.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Being or thrown out of equilibrium.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.