as in confusing
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as in baffling
to throw into a state of mental uncertainty
troops disoriented by the sudden change in battle plans
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Recent Examples of disorienting
Literary Hub, 23 Apr. 2026
Plucked from a previous life as a working actor, Richard Gadd experienced a disorienting whirlwind less than two years ago.
—Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 23 Apr. 2026
The Manchester trio’s latest album proposes a heady, rhythmic strain of post-punk that references familiar touchstones while sounding genuinely, deliriously disorienting.
—Shaad D’souza, Pitchfork, 20 Apr. 2026
But still, the stratospheric valuation of the design pieces at Sotheby’s is disorienting; there is vertigo at this height.
—David Lê, Curbed, 20 Apr. 2026
Awards campaigning, alongside such A-list nominees as Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Sandra Bullock, was disorienting.
—Seija Rankin, HollywoodReporter, 16 Apr. 2026
At first, the way Gray has structured his two-hour play (there’s a ten minute intermission between the two-act play) between eras – 1930, 1965, 2008 – may seem disorienting.
—Amy Reyes, Miami Herald, 16 Apr. 2026
Levy’s novel is comic but suffused with dread, replicating the internet era’s many disorienting bids for our attention.
—Emma Alpern, Vulture, 8 Apr. 2026
By the movie’s end, the charming love story has devolved into a disorienting series of mind games.
—Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 8 Apr. 2026
Nicole Russell, USA Today, 23 Apr. 2026
For someone who has spent a lot of time in traditional museums with windowless galleries, the experience was disorienting in the best way.
—John Wogan, Travel + Leisure, 22 Apr. 2026
The irony, of course, is that Handle are so locked into their own sense of logic that listening to the 27-minute album can be disorienting and frequently quite intense.
—Shaad D’souza, Pitchfork, 20 Apr. 2026
The world economy is experiencing a disorienting flashback to the 1970s.
—Paul Wiseman, Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 2026
The world economy is experiencing a disorienting flashback to the 1970s.
—ABC News, 11 Apr. 2026
Parsing the publications side by side can be disorienting.
—Ashley Belanger, ArsTechnica, 6 Apr. 2026
Then conditions suddenly turn whiteout, disorienting at best and fatal at worst.
—Laura Dannen Redman, Robb Report, 29 Mar. 2026
This device simulates zero-G by flipping and disorienting the cells placed within it.
—Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 26 Mar. 2026
Adjective
And there’s nothing like the disorienting effect of standing in darkness in an unfamiliar place to quicken the senses and sharpen the ear.
—Literary Hub, 23 Apr. 2026
Plucked from a previous life as a working actor, Richard Gadd experienced a disorienting whirlwind less than two years ago.
—Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 23 Apr. 2026
The Manchester trio’s latest album proposes a heady, rhythmic strain of post-punk that references familiar touchstones while sounding genuinely, deliriously disorienting.
—Shaad D’souza, Pitchfork, 20 Apr. 2026
But still, the stratospheric valuation of the design pieces at Sotheby’s is disorienting; there is vertigo at this height.
—David Lê, Curbed, 20 Apr. 2026
Awards campaigning, alongside such A-list nominees as Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Sandra Bullock, was disorienting.
—Seija Rankin, HollywoodReporter, 16 Apr. 2026
At first, the way Gray has structured his two-hour play (there’s a ten minute intermission between the two-act play) between eras – 1930, 1965, 2008 – may seem disorienting.
—Amy Reyes, Miami Herald, 16 Apr. 2026
Levy’s novel is comic but suffused with dread, replicating the internet era’s many disorienting bids for our attention.
—Emma Alpern, Vulture, 8 Apr. 2026
By the movie’s end, the charming love story has devolved into a disorienting series of mind games.
—Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 8 Apr. 2026
Verb
For someone who studied political science and theology, that shift has been disorienting.
—Nicole Russell, USA Today, 23 Apr. 2026
For someone who has spent a lot of time in traditional museums with windowless galleries, the experience was disorienting in the best way.
—John Wogan, Travel + Leisure, 22 Apr. 2026
The irony, of course, is that Handle are so locked into their own sense of logic that listening to the 27-minute album can be disorienting and frequently quite intense.
—Shaad D’souza, Pitchfork, 20 Apr. 2026
The world economy is experiencing a disorienting flashback to the 1970s.
—Paul Wiseman, Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 2026
The world economy is experiencing a disorienting flashback to the 1970s.
—ABC News, 11 Apr. 2026
Parsing the publications side by side can be disorienting.
—Ashley Belanger, ArsTechnica, 6 Apr. 2026
Then conditions suddenly turn whiteout, disorienting at best and fatal at worst.
—Laura Dannen Redman, Robb Report, 29 Mar. 2026
This device simulates zero-G by flipping and disorienting the cells placed within it.
—Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 26 Mar. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for disorienting
Adjective
-
The layout of the hotel is a little confusing because of a lack of signposts and labels.—
Chas Newkey-Burden,
TheWeek,
24 Apr. 2026
-
This delightfully confusing creation from Slovenian designer Lara Bohinc features a shiny aluminum chair physically held within the arms of a reclining mahogany copy of the chair below.—
Francesca Perry,
CNN Money,
24 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
As the castle’s internal order collapses under the weight of a string of baffling crimes, Araki strikes a fragile alliance with Kuroda Kanbei – a razor-minded captive languishing in his own dungeon – in a race to root out a traitor before Oda’s army closes in.—
Naman Ramachandran,
Variety,
14 Apr. 2026
-
This inversion explains a host of baffling political and cultural phenomena of late.—
Spencer Kornhaber,
The Atlantic,
27 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
Our universe is full of mysteries, but few are as perplexing as the dark, tiny galaxies that hover around larger ones like the Milky Way.—
Paul Sutter,
Space.com,
20 Apr. 2026
-
Perhaps the most perplexing part of the Nancy Guthrie investigation for the general public has been the lack of information.—
Lizzie Lanuza,
StyleCaster,
14 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
But even more than engaging the big ideas that Emma’s revelation triggers — pun somewhat intended — Lee and Borli wanted to craft an experience that would mimic its main characters’ bewildering interiority.—
Sarah Shachat,
IndieWire,
6 Apr. 2026
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There aren’t many ways to earn a club’s first win better than bewildering the league’s defending champions at their place.—
Braidon Nourse,
Denver Post,
26 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
Grief is one of the most confounding aspects of the human experience.—
Aramide Tinubu,
Variety,
17 Apr. 2026
-
In 2021, one year into D’Amaro’s tenure and following COVID shutdowns, Disney did away with FastPass and introduced a confounding and very costly series of pay-to-skip passes, which require timing advanced booking of limited slots in these formerly free-to-enter shorter lines.—
Rebecca Alter,
Vulture,
5 Feb. 2026
Verb
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New observations of Uranus's enigmatic outer rings have shown them to be even more mysterious than astronomers had thought, and their unusual properties hint at some puzzling things going on with the planet's system of moons.—
Keith Cooper,
Space.com,
22 Apr. 2026
-
That’s puzzling because DeSantis has been an enthusiastic supporter of tax relief.—
ORLANDO SENTINEL AND MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL BOARDS,
The Orlando Sentinel,
17 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
The Mets’ continual snub of Hall of Famer Carter, a pivotal player in the team’s history as the first building block of the 1986 championship club, is both mystifying and downright embarrassing.—
Bill Madden,
New York Daily News,
14 Mar. 2026
-
The outlandish and mystifying story received nearly wall-to-wall coverage, but the plane was never found.—
Kelly Lawler,
USA Today,
19 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
The problem with the exhibition is not the works of art on view, but its ambiguous premise, its unwillingness to define its terms and approach the Lost Cause with historical clarity.—
Horace D. Ballard,
Artforum,
22 Apr. 2026
-
The services can analyze all sorts of things, from the specific — such as a hotel bill that exceeded a preset limit — to the more ambiguous, such as whether a lawyer’s description of a task was too vague to be worthy of payment.—
Joe Mahr,
Chicago Tribune,
19 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Disorienting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/disorienting. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
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