Unsettling

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·4 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The weakening of some previously established system or norm.

    "But reconstructing theory has proved more problematic than feminists might have hoped, even as their efforts played an important if sometimes overlooked part in post-modern unsettlings of theories in the West."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of unsettle form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    That makes one troubled or uneasy; disquieting or distressing.

    "More unsettling was the origin story of the infamous tell-all book Princess in Love. Diana claimed to be outraged in 1994 when Daily Express journalist Anna Pasternak spilled the beans of her affair with former army officer James Hewitt[…]"

Example

More examples

"Those two are so quiet it's unsettling. Could this be the quiet before the storm?"

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