distraught

dis·traught

adjective \di-ˈstrȯt\

Definition of DISTRAUGHT

1

: agitated with doubt or mental conflict or pain <distraught mourners>

2

: mentally deranged : crazed <as if thou wert distraught and mad with terror — Shakespeare>

— dis·traught·ly adverb

Examples of DISTRAUGHT

1. Distraught relatives are waiting for news of the missing children.
2. She was distraught over the death of her partner.
3. Of particular concern are phony contractors, who knock on the doors of distraught homeowners and offer to repair damaged roofs or remove fallen trees. —Natalie Rodriguez, This Old House, March 2006
4. The night before the story broke, West sat down for a two-hour interview with the Spokane-Review and left so distraught that its editor, Steven Smith, asked the police chief to check on him. —Unmesh Kher, Time, 23 May 2005
5. Captured by news photographers under the direction of his manager Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis's turn in the barber's chair was a public ceremony: a symbolic shearing, not only of Elvis—who would return from the service a meek semblance of himself, a mama's boy without a mama (his distraught mother, Gladys, died while he was stationed at Fort Hood, soon to depart for Germany)—but of rock 'n' roll itself. —James Wolcott, Vanity Fair, November 2000

Origin of DISTRAUGHT

Middle English, modification of Latin distractus (see ²distract)

First Known Use: 14th century

Related to DISTRAUGHT

Synonyms

agitated, delirious, distracted, distrait, frantic, frenzied, hysterical (also hysteric)

Antonyms

collected, composed, recollected, self-collected, self-composed, self-possessed, unhysterical

Related Words

alarmed, anxious, disquieted, disturbed, nervous, perturbed, tense, troubled, upset, worried, wrought (up); affrighted, aghast, alarmed, fearful, frightened, horrified, scared, spooked, terrified, terrorized; ballistic, berserk, crazed, demented, deranged, mad, maniacal (also maniac), nuclear; raging, ranting, raving

Near Antonyms

calm, peaceful, placid, self-possessed, serene, tranquil; cool, coolheaded, undisturbed, unperturbed, unshaken, untroubled, unworried

Other Psychology Terms

fetish, hypochondria, intelligence, mania, narcissism, neurosis, pathological, psychosis, schadenfreude, subliminal

Rhymes with DISTRAUGHT

a thought, Connacht, dreadnought, forethought, free thought, handwrought, high-wrought, in-wrought, onslaught, self-taught, store-bought, unsought, untaught, unthought