Distraction

How to spell distraction

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce distraction

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does distraction mean?

1. nounSomething that draws the attention away from what one should be focusing on.
2. nounAn activity or entertainment that provides relief from routine or stress.

Distraction in a sentence

• The constant phone notifications were a major distraction during the meeting.

• The seaside town offered plenty of distraction for visitors on a rainy afternoon.

• She moved her desk to a quiet corner to avoid every distraction in the office.

• Gardening became his favourite distraction after a long week at work.

Where does distraction come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb distrahere, which literally meant 'to pull apart' or 'to drag in different directions', formed from dis- 'apart' and trahere 'to pull or draw'. From that verb came the noun distractio, describing a pulling away or a scattering of the attention. English took the word in during the 1400s, by way of Old French, first carrying the sense of mental disturbance or even madness, since the mind was imagined as being torn this way and that. Over time the milder modern meaning of something that diverts the attention became the everyday sense. The buried root trahere is the same one that gives us 'tractor', 'attract', and 'extract', and remembering that hidden 'tract' (the part that does the pulling) is a useful guard against misspelling the middle of the word.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart)
• tract (from trahere: to pull or draw)
• -ion (noun suffix)