perturbed
Other forms: perturbedly
Imagine a couple of snakes getting loose in a pet shop, and the manager running around trying to round up the snakes and calm down the customers, and you'll picture a perturbed person. Perturbed means flustered and confused.
When you're perturbed, you're upset by something, and rattled enough by it to be thrown off your usual calmness into a state of confusion. In astronomy, perturbation is defined as "the effects on a large body when it is subjected to gravitational effects from more than one other large body." When a planet is perturbed in astronomy, it is pulled in different directions by strong forces, which is a great metaphor for what happens to a person who is perturbed.
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thrown into a state of agitated confusion; (`rattled' is an informal term)synonyms: flustered, hot and bothered, rattleddiscomposedhaving your composure disturbed
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Vocabulary lists containing perturbed
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This list of intermediate words features a mixture of easier and more difficult words that you may be less familiar with. Study these words and watch your GRE score grow.
Harry can't wait to return for his second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, until a house elf named Dobby warns him of terrible danger ahead. When students start turning to stone — and Harry is a prime suspect — the boy wizard must figure out what's really going on at Hogwarts.