Disturbing

How to spell disturbing

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce disturbing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disturbing mean?

1. adjectiveCausing anxiety, worry, or unease.
2. verbPresent participle of disturb: interrupting the peace, order, or settled state of something.

Disturbing in a sentence

• adjective

  The report contained disturbing details about the factory's safety record.

• verb

  The builders were disturbing the neighbours with constant drilling.

• adjective

  She found the late-night phone calls deeply disturbing.

• verb

  He tiptoed out without disturbing the sleeping baby.

Where does disturbing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb disturbare, formed from the intensive prefix dis- and turbare, meaning 'to throw into confusion' or 'to stir up'. That root turbare itself came from turba, a Latin noun meaning 'a crowd, an uproar, a commotion', so the original image was literally a crowd thrown into disorder. The verb passed into Old French as destourber and entered English in the 1200s as 'disturb', meaning to interrupt someone's peace or settled state. The participial adjective 'disturbing', describing anything that unsettles the mind, grew naturally from that verb and was well established by the modern period. The same turba root survives in the everyday words 'turbulent' and 'trouble', which is a useful reminder that the spelling keeps the 'turb' cluster intact.

How the word is built

• dis- (completely, apart)
• turb (from Latin turbare: to throw into confusion, stir up)
• -ing (adjective/participle suffix)