as in confusing
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Dissimilar Words
as in baffling
to throw into a state of mental uncertainty
troops disoriented by the sudden change in battle plans
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
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Recent Examples of disorienting
Sam McDowell,
Kansas City Star,
24 June 2026
Alfa’s jazz background shines in the album’s disorienting moments.
—
H.d. Angel,
Pitchfork,
16 June 2026
With essentially no right angles or corners—which are thought by some, possibly including Gleason, to attract evil spirits—the architecture had a pleasantly disorienting quality.
—
Bruce Handy,
New Yorker,
15 June 2026
Around me, tunnels, chambers and voids unfold like an imaginary city, at once familiar and disorienting.
—
Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle,
Forbes.com,
10 June 2026
Yamashita’s mixture of archival material and original fiction can be disorienting, and so can the book’s cacophony of voices.
—
Literary Hub,
28 May 2026
Protect your claim right away The moments after an impact are disorienting.
—
Ascend Agency,
Baltimore Sun,
27 May 2026
Obviously, the users can also opt for surfing’s rapid digressions due to the overwhelming and disorienting number of choices that they are confronted with when accessing a hypertext.
—
Carmen Daniela Maier,
Encyclopedia Britannica,
26 May 2026
The ad captured attention but was a little disorienting for the actors, says Bowen.
—
Brian Steinberg,
Variety,
18 May 2026
Helen Carefoot,
Flow Space,
17 June 2026
The episode is a revealing moment in a story that Pancevski broke large parts of in the Journal in 2023, and a useful glimpse at Washington’s — and the world’s — disorienting fog of war in a broken information environment.
—
Ben Smith,
semafor.com,
15 June 2026
After an extended and purposely disorienting opening that takes its sweet time to develop, Margaret and Daniel dodge suited agents working for a secret government protector outfit called WARDEX.
—
Randy Myers,
Mercury News,
9 June 2026
No One Talks About Retirement often begins with a subtle but disorienting shift.
—
James Mayer Jr,
Forbes.com,
1 June 2026
Out with the Old, in with the Letterboxd Hollywood has always been obsessed with youth, but the current generational turnover happening inside entertainment has been especially disorienting for several reasons.
—
Alison Foreman,
IndieWire,
31 May 2026
Too much red, meanwhile, risks disorienting penguins, whose eyes can’t perceive it (likely because red light does not deeply penetrate the ocean, which is their primary hunting environment).
—
Oscar Holland,
CNN Money,
25 May 2026
With Teutonic deadpan, Sander sends up the often ideologically weighted social photography of which his project is an example—and records the giddy, glitchy instability of the Weimar years, when the old order was in disorienting flux, and would soon disappear altogether.
—
Max Norman,
New Yorker,
21 May 2026
Americans of all political tendencies increasingly favor sweeping, disorienting political change.
—
Abby McCloskey,
Twin Cities,
7 May 2026
Adjective
Peterson’s unpredictable, last-minute and sudden in-game absences were the backbone for a disorienting season — and the foundation for doubt.
—
Sam McDowell,
Kansas City Star,
24 June 2026
Alfa’s jazz background shines in the album’s disorienting moments.
—
H.d. Angel,
Pitchfork,
16 June 2026
With essentially no right angles or corners—which are thought by some, possibly including Gleason, to attract evil spirits—the architecture had a pleasantly disorienting quality.
—
Bruce Handy,
New Yorker,
15 June 2026
Around me, tunnels, chambers and voids unfold like an imaginary city, at once familiar and disorienting.
—
Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle,
Forbes.com,
10 June 2026
Yamashita’s mixture of archival material and original fiction can be disorienting, and so can the book’s cacophony of voices.
—
Literary Hub,
28 May 2026
Protect your claim right away The moments after an impact are disorienting.
—
Ascend Agency,
Baltimore Sun,
27 May 2026
Obviously, the users can also opt for surfing’s rapid digressions due to the overwhelming and disorienting number of choices that they are confronted with when accessing a hypertext.
—
Carmen Daniela Maier,
Encyclopedia Britannica,
26 May 2026
The ad captured attention but was a little disorienting for the actors, says Bowen.
—
Brian Steinberg,
Variety,
18 May 2026
Verb
This doesn’t discredit the fact that mental and physical changes from menopause can be disorienting and jarring.
—
Helen Carefoot,
Flow Space,
17 June 2026
The episode is a revealing moment in a story that Pancevski broke large parts of in the Journal in 2023, and a useful glimpse at Washington’s — and the world’s — disorienting fog of war in a broken information environment.
—
Ben Smith,
semafor.com,
15 June 2026
After an extended and purposely disorienting opening that takes its sweet time to develop, Margaret and Daniel dodge suited agents working for a secret government protector outfit called WARDEX.
—
Randy Myers,
Mercury News,
9 June 2026
No One Talks About Retirement often begins with a subtle but disorienting shift.
—
James Mayer Jr,
Forbes.com,
1 June 2026
Out with the Old, in with the Letterboxd Hollywood has always been obsessed with youth, but the current generational turnover happening inside entertainment has been especially disorienting for several reasons.
—
Alison Foreman,
IndieWire,
31 May 2026
Too much red, meanwhile, risks disorienting penguins, whose eyes can’t perceive it (likely because red light does not deeply penetrate the ocean, which is their primary hunting environment).
—
Oscar Holland,
CNN Money,
25 May 2026
With Teutonic deadpan, Sander sends up the often ideologically weighted social photography of which his project is an example—and records the giddy, glitchy instability of the Weimar years, when the old order was in disorienting flux, and would soon disappear altogether.
—
Max Norman,
New Yorker,
21 May 2026
Americans of all political tendencies increasingly favor sweeping, disorienting political change.
—
Abby McCloskey,
Twin Cities,
7 May 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for disorienting
Adjective
-
Messaging about what’s in the air has been confusing.
-
If the experience feels confusing or unreliable, employees may under-contribute or disengage altogether.
Verb
-
The Illinois numbers, especially this year’s, are baffling experts.
-
For more than four minutes Darnold drove downfield, connecting on three of four passes, baffling the pass rushers, bleeding the clock, and by the time the Seahawks finally gave the ball back, the Rams had only 25 seconds to live.
Adjective
-
The sentencing capped an extraordinary investigation that solved one of New York’s most perplexing mysteries.
-
The charming little burg is plagued by a perplexing dead body problem.
Verb
-
Similarly, the defensively bewildering 9-6 loss the Wild suffered to start Round 2 in Colorado set the tone for five games that would ultimately be their undoing.
-
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.
Adjective
-
Grief is one of the most confounding aspects of the human experience.
-
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.
Verb
-
And the performances from South Korea at the World Cup so far have been puzzling, given the talent at manager Hong Myung-bo’s disposal.
-
In 2015, scientists first described a tiny and puzzling species of hominin from an unusually rich cache of fossils found at a site known as Dinaledi Chamber within the cave system.
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.
-
The outlandish and mystifying story received nearly wall-to-wall coverage, but the plane was never found.
Adjective
-
Rubio met with Gulf Arab leaders in Bahrain on Thursday in an effort to assuage their concerns over certain terms of the MOU, including the ambiguous language around the management of the Strait of Hormuz.
-
With one, everything the best-performing agent learns is written into a layer for the next—how to handle a difficult customer, which exception patterns resolved cleanly, what an ambiguous edge case meant for the business.
Cite this Entry
“Disorienting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/disorienting. Accessed 29 Jun. 2026.
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