disturbed

/dəˈstʌrbd/

/dɪsˈtʌbd/

Other forms: disturbedly

If something is disturbed, it's been moved or changed — it's not positioned or functioning the way it usually does. Traveling across the globe gives many people disturbed sleep patterns.

If your younger brother has been snooping in your room, the only evidence might be the disturbed items on your desk — maybe he rifled through your diary and left it in a different spot. When people are described as disturbed, it means they're troubled emotionally. The word comes from the Latin disturbare, "throw into disorder," and its root turba, "turmoil."

Definitions of disturbed

1. adjective

   having the place or position changed
   “the disturbed books and papers on her desk”

   “disturbed grass showed where the horse had passed”

   synonyms:

   disarranged

   having the arrangement disturbed; not in order
2. adjective

   afflicted with or marked by anxious uneasiness or trouble or grief
   “lapsed into disturbed sleep”

   synonyms: consternated, disquieted, distressed, harrowed, upset, worried

   troubled

   characterized by or indicative of distress or affliction or danger or need
3. adjective

   emotionally unstable and having difficulty coping with personal relationships
   synonyms: maladjusted

   neurotic, psychoneurotic

   affected with emotional disorder
4. adjective

   affected with madness or insanity
   synonyms: brainsick, crazy, demented, mad, sick, unbalanced, unhinged

   insane

   afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement