DISTRACT • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Distract

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/dɪstrˈækt/ Listen

verb

Distract v. t. (past & past part. distracted, old past part. distraught; pres. part. distracting)

1.

To draw apart or away; to divide; to disjoin. "A city... distracted from itself."

2.

To draw (the sight, mind, or attention) in different directions; to perplex; to confuse; as, to distract the eye; to distract the attention. "Mixed metaphors... distract the imagination."

3.

To agitate by conflicting passions, or by a variety of motives or of cares; to confound; to harass. "Horror and doubt distract His troubled thoughts."

4.

To unsettle the reason of; to render insane; to craze; to madden; most frequently used in the participle, distracted. "A poor mad soul;... poverty hath distracted her."

adjective

Distract adj.

1.

Separated; drawn asunder. (Obs.)

2.

Insane; mad. (Obs.)

See images of 'Distract'

Etymology of 'Distract'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Distract" Quotes from Famous Books

... no others to share our devotion, to distract our attention. Our only one should be, as near as a mother can make ...

— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... warmly, and lost no time in taking his advice. Captain Roy's foot had by this time so swollen that he could not put it in the stirrup. He was suffering a good deal, but at least the pain served to distract him from the gloom that lay heavy on his spirits. From the hillside far above the town we could see the lights of Inverness beginning to glimmer as we passed. A score of times we had to dismount on account of the roughness of the ground to lead our horses along the steep incline of ...

— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... in a flood of splendor. Her deep gray eyes contained wells of womanly wisdom. Her skin, fair as a lily of Artois, had borrowed from the sun five or six faint freckles, just to prove the purity of her blood and distract the eye with a variety of charms. The Merovingian Princess, the long-haired daughter of kings, as she was fondly styled by the nuns, queened it wherever she went by right divine of ...

— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... he said, "that that fair-haired daughter of the Greeks, Madonna Elena, the slim, the rosy-fingered disturber of the repose of cities, hath appeared to distract this our city of Padua. Me at least she hath distraught. Fair friends, sister and brother poets, you shall understand that henceforth I devote myself to this lady and her praise. More, I vow a vow, and call upon you to register it in the Golden Book of the Amorous Gests of Padua, ...

— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... enormous power and patronage of the State into the hands of the Aristocratic party. If the Republicans were to attempt holding a Convention to select a candidate for President, their meetings would be promptly suppressed by the Police and the Bayonet. This may distract and scatter them, though I trust it will not. Their Presidential candidate will doubtless be designated by a Legislative Caucus or meeting of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and fuller expression of the party's ...

— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

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