Distract

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /dɪˈstɹækt/

Definitions

1. To divert someone's attention away from what they were focusing on
2. To cause someone to lose focus on their current task by introducing a competing interest or stimulus
3. To shift a person's concentration from one subject to another, often resulting in decreased productivity or awareness

Etymology: Pulling a single thread apart is the image hidden inside "distract." The Latin verb "distrahere" literally meant "to pull apart," built from "dis-," meaning "apart" or "asunder," and "trahere," meaning "to pull" or "drag." Its past participle "distractus" carried the sense of something torn in different directions, and that tug-of-war idea is what the English word still carries. English borrowed the word from Latin "distractus," and the earliest English senses kept the physical image. To distract something was to pull it in different directions, to tear it apart, or to drive someone mad. The modern sense of drawing a person's attention away from what they were doing developed from this idea of having one's focus pulled elsewhere.

Synonyms: divert, preoccupy, interrupt

Antonyms: focus, concentrate