Definition of "disturb" []

• To break up or destroy the tranquillity or settled state of: "Subterranean fires and deep unrest disturb the whole area” ( Rachel Carson). (verb-transitive)
• To trouble emotionally or mentally; upset. (verb-transitive)
• To interfere with; interrupt: noise that disturbed my sleep. (verb-transitive)
• To intrude on; inconvenience: Constant calls disturbed her work. (verb-transitive)
• To put out of order; disarrange. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Let the limitation of the word disturb our previous estimate of Paradise, grant that it so disturbs that estimate, not the less all such consequences leave the dispute exactly where it was; and if a balance of reason can be found for limiting the extent of the word _aeonian_, it will not be the less true because it may happen to disturb a crotchet of our own."
• "Horace Greeley, editor of the "New York Tribune," the leading Republican journal of the North, contented himself with referring to Brown and his followers as "mistaken men," but added that he would "not by one reproachful word disturb the bloody shrouds wherein John Brown and his compatriots are sleeping.""
• "Next came leasing for deer and with long deer seasons, many don't want to "disturb" the deer on their lease by squirrel hunting."