Perturb

//pəˈtɜːb// verb

verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To cause (something) to be physically disordered or disturbed; to cause confusion. transitive

    "Mary therefore the more knaue art thou I ſay / That perturbeſt the worde of god I ſay […]"

  2. 2
    throw into great confusion or disorder wordnet
  3. 3
    To disturb (someone, their mind, etc.) mentally; to bother, trouble, upset. transitive

    "[…] I have often found / The truth thereof, in my private paſſions: / For I doe never feele my ſelfe perturb'd / VVith any generall vvords 'gainſt my profeſſion, / They doe avvake, and ſtirre me: […]"

  4. 4
    disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed wordnet
  5. 5
    Of a celestial body: to modify the motion or orbit of (another celestial body) by exerting a gravitational force; hence (physics), to slightly modify (the motion of an object). transitive
Show 5 more definitions
  1. 6
    cause a celestial body to deviate from a theoretically regular orbital motion, especially as a result of interposed or extraordinary gravitational pull wordnet
  2. 7
    To slightly modify (a set of equations or their solutions), producing deviations from a simple, easily solvable problem, in order to find an approximate solution to a problem that is more difficult to solve or otherwise unsolvable. transitive
  3. 8
    disturb or interfere with the usual path of an electron or atom wordnet
  4. 9
    To influence (a process or system) so that it deviates from its normal state. transitive
  5. 10
    To bother, to disturb, to trouble. intransitive

    "Thy ghoſt O father ſweete, thy greuous ghoſt, / Perturbing in my dremes hath me compeld to ſee this coaſt."

Synonyms

All synonyms
derangedisturbagitatedisconcertdisturbflurry

Example

More examples

"Magical are the straight lines in how they perturb the curved ones, aggravate their distortion and make them look more zigzagged, revealing their deceptive appearance."

Etymology

From Late Middle English perturben (“to disturb (someone) mentally, disquiet; to cause disorder to (something), confuse; to hinder (something)”), from Old French perturber, and from its etymon Latin perturbāre, the present active infinitive of perturbō (“to confuse; to alarm, disturb, trouble, perturb”), from per- (intensifying prefix) + turbō (“to agitate, disturb, unsettle, perturb; to upset”) (from turba (“disorder, disturbance, turmoil”) (possibly from Ancient Greek τῠ́ρβη (tŭ́rbē, “confusion, disorder, tumult”), either from Pre-Greek, or Proto-Indo-European *(s)twerH- (“to agitate, stir up; to urge on, propel”)) + -ō (suffix forming infinitives of regular first-conjugation verbs)).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.