Disturbance

How to spell disturbance

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce disturbance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disturbance mean?

1. nounAn interruption of a settled or peaceful condition; a commotion or interference.

Disturbance in a sentence

• The late-night party caused a serious disturbance in the quiet street.

• Police were called to deal with a disturbance outside the stadium.

Where does disturbance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb turbare, meaning 'to throw into disorder' or 'to stir up', which itself grew from turba, a Latin noun for a crowd or commotion. With the prefix dis- adding force, the verb disturbare came to mean 'to thoroughly upset or unsettle'. English took the word in through Old French (destourber, destourbance) in the 1300s, when it described both physical agitation and the breaking of someone's peace. The same turba root quietly survives in 'turbulence', 'perturb', and even 'trouble', which is why the idea of stirred-up confusion runs through them all. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle and end: writers hear a schwa and may wonder whether to write -ance or -ence, but the -ance ending is fixed.

How the word is built

• dis- (intensive/apart)
• turb (from Latin turbare: to throw into confusion)
• -ance (noun-forming suffix)