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Distract   /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.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Distract" Quotes from Famous Books



... Saint-Genevieve, whither Lucien was going, he had come to know a stranger by sight; a young man of five-and-twenty or thereabouts, working with the sustained industry which nothing can disturb nor distract, the sign by which your genuine literary worker is known. Evidently the young man had been reading there for some time, for the librarian and attendants all knew him and paid him special attention; the librarian would even allow him to take away ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... whose bosom, all serene, Feels not fierce Passion's raving tempest roll! Oh, ne'er may Care distract that placid mien! Oh, ne'er may Doubt's ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... your husband's business affairs, and sympathize with the cares and anxieties which beset him. Distract his mind with pleasant or amusing conversation, when you find him nervous and fagged in brain ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... impression on the young girl. Jenkins became immediately her friend, confidant, a vigilant and kind guardian. Occasionally, when, in the studio, somebody—her father most likely of all—uttered a risky jest, the Irishman would contract his eyebrows, give a little click of the tongue, or perhaps distract Felicia's attention. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the thrilling sensations extracted from incidents wholly unlike anything possible in their lives, but near enough to reported facts to be able to astonish and excite them. Such improbable but ingeniously contrived events are enough to distract them, and if there be more in Mr. Hyne's stories imparted by his personal eagerness and honesty, it escapes them, or at ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James


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