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DISTRACTED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Having the attention diverted especially because of anxiety
Synonyms:
distracted; distrait
Classified under:
Similar:
inattentive (showing a lack of attention or care)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb distract
Context examples:
Mrs. Harrison loved Jim as if he had been her own son, and her husband loved mine, so they came to my help, and may God bless them for their kindness to a distracted wife and mother!
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
When we come out of the supermarket and think about where we left the car, for example, we only need to recall where we parked the car today, rather than being distracted by recalling every single time we came to do our shopping.
(Selective amnesia: how rats and humans are able to actively forget distracting memories, University of Cambridge)
There was the stile before me—the very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The poor girl was almost distracted: that quarter of the palace was all in an uproar; the servants ran for ladders; the monkey was seen by hundreds in the court, sitting upon the ridge of a building, holding me like a baby in one of his forepaws, and feeding me with the other, by cramming into my mouth some victuals he had squeezed out of the bag on one side of his chaps, and patting me when I would not eat; whereat many of the rabble below could not forbear laughing; neither do I think they justly ought to be blamed, for, without question, the sight was ridiculous enough to every body but myself.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
So that, in short, I was quite distracted, and raved about the drawing-room.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Your timing is perfect—you will soon be distracted with exciting career developments, and when that happens, you won’t want to deal with paperwork.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
Oh, dear! sighed Amy, now she's in a contrary fit, and will drive me distracted before I can get her properly ready.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Away she bustled, half distracted, while my father sat moody, with his chin upon his hands, and I remained lost in wonder at the thought of this grand new relative from London, and of all that his coming might mean to us.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I shall go distracted.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
