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Definition of "perturbation" [per•tur•ba•tion]

  • The act of perturbing. (noun)
  • The state of being perturbed; agitation. (noun)
  • A small change in a physical system. (noun)
  • Physics & Astronomy Variation in a designated orbit, as of a planet, resulting from the influence of one or more external bodies. (noun)

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.

Use "perturbation" in a sentence
  • "He agreed to furnish dogs on a given date, but no sooner had Floyd Vanderlip turned his toes up-creek, than Charley hied himself away in perturbation to Loraine Lisznayi."
  • "The interplanetary and relativistic corrections can be shown, to lowest order in perturbation theory, to result in the major axes of the planetary orbits precessing in space."
  • "A theoretically optimal system that blows up at the slightest perturbation is not a great real-world solution."
Words like "perturbation"