Distracting

How to spell distracting

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce distracting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does distracting mean?

1. adjectiveDrawing attention away from what someone is trying to focus on, making concentration difficult.

Distracting in a sentence

• The constant pinging of notifications was distracting during the meeting.

• She found the flickering overhead light too distracting to read by.

Where does distracting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the Latin verb distrahere, which literally meant 'to pull apart' or 'to drag in different directions', built from dis- 'apart' and trahere 'to draw or pull'. In Roman use it could describe physically tearing something in two, but it also carried the figurative sense of pulling a person's attention or loyalties in conflicting directions. English took the verb 'distract' from the Latin past participle distractus in the late 1300s, and the participial form 'distracting' followed as the action gained its modern feel of drawing the mind away from what it should be doing. The same trahere root, meaning 'to pull', is the hidden engine inside a whole family of English words such as 'tractor', 'attract', 'extract' and 'contract', which is a handy memory hook: the spelling keeps the solid -tract- core, so once you see the pull in 'tract' the rest of the word falls into place.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, away)
• tract (to draw or pull, from Latin trahere)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)