Upsetting

How to spell upsetting

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce upsetting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does upsetting mean?

1. adjectiveCausing feelings of distress, sadness, or worry.
2. verbPresent participle of upset: disturbing, overturning, or distressing something or someone.

Upsetting in a sentence

• adjective

  The news about the layoffs was deeply upsetting for the whole team.

• verb

  He kept upsetting the careful balance of the budget with last-minute purchases.

• adjective

  She found the long delay at the hospital genuinely upsetting.

• verb

  The cat was upsetting every cup it walked past on the shelf.

Where does upsetting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the very old native compound 'upset', which joins the Old English directional word 'up' with 'set', from Old English 'settan' meaning 'to cause to sit' or 'to place'. For centuries 'upset' literally described tipping something over so that what was upright ended up overturned, and from that physical image of knocking things off balance came the figurative sense of disturbing a person's calm or composure. The present participle 'upsetting' simply adds the '-ing' ending, and because the base verb ends in a single short stressed vowel followed by a single consonant, the spelling rule doubles the final 't', which is the small detail writers occasionally drop. Both parent elements are thoroughly Germanic and have been part of English since the earliest records, so the word carries no exotic borrowing, only a homely Anglo-Saxon ancestry. The double 't' is the only real trap, and remembering the rule of doubling after a short stressed vowel keeps it straight.

How the word is built

• up- (up, over)
• set (to place, put)
• -t- (doubled consonant)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)