unhinge
verb
Simple meaning
Disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnhinjSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ənˈhɪndʒ
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
Disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed
To remove the leaf of a door or a window from its supporting hinges.
To mentally disturb.
zoologyof a joint
To dislocate.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed
Used this way, unhinge is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: disturb in mind or make uneasy
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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.