Meaning & use
disturbing
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Making you feel worried, shocked or uneasy.
Grammar: Describes the cause of the feeling, not the person: a disturbing report, not a disturbing viewer.
Patterns
- find something disturbing
- it is disturbing that something
The documentary contains some disturbing images.
It is disturbing that so many people ignored the warning.
Her silence was more disturbing than any shouting.
adjectivebefore a nounformal
Interrupting a calm or normal state, so that people cannot rest or concentrate.
Grammar: Less common sense; it usually comes before a noun and refers to noise or events.
The disturbing noise from the road kept the guests awake.
A disturbing influence in the class made it hard to study.
Nothing disturbing happened during the quiet night shift.
Word forms
| comparative | more disturbing |
|---|---|
| superlative | most disturbing |
Common combinations
- disturbing news
- The disturbing news spread through the village quickly.
- deeply disturbing
- The footage was deeply disturbing to watch.
- disturbing images
- Parents were warned about disturbing images in the film.
- disturbing trend
- Experts are worried about a disturbing trend in teen sleep.
- find it disturbing
- Many readers found it disturbing that the author glorified violence.
Synonyms and how they differ
- upsetting
- Upsetting is more about making someone sad or distressed, while disturbing suggests deeper worry or fear.
- alarming
- Alarming points to a threat that needs action, whereas disturbing can describe things that simply feel wrong.
- unsettling
- Unsettling is milder and describes vague unease, while disturbing is stronger and often involves something shocking.
- distressing
- Distressing stresses real suffering, so it is used for painful events rather than strange or creepy ones.
Opposites
Word family
- disturb verb
- to interrupt or upset someone or something
- disturbance noun
- an interruption or a public disorder
- disturbed adjective
- worried, or mentally unwell
- disturbingly adverb
- in an upsetting way
Commonly confused: disturbing or disturbed?
disturbing vs disturbed
Disturbed describes the person who feels upset (I was disturbed), while disturbing describes what causes the feeling.
Practice
I could not finish the book because some scenes were so ___ that I felt sick.
Choose one answer.
Disturbing describes things that cause unease. Disturbed describes a person who feels it, and disturbance and disturb are a noun and a verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “disturbing”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.