disrupted

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of disrupt.

   Protesters disrupted the city council session for nearly an hour.

   Supply chains were severely disrupted during the crisis.

   Note

   One spelling serves as both simple past (protesters disrupted the session) and past participle, which follows have in perfect tenses and be in the passive. Because disrupt always takes an object, the passive is common: services were disrupted, a disrupted market. The participle also carries the business sense, where an established product has been displaced by a surprising rival. An older adjective, disrupt itself, once meant torn asunder, and disrupted now covers that ground.

2. 2
   adjective

   Liable to disruption; readily interrupted or thrown into disorder by outside forces.

   Coastal habitats are readily disrupted by even minor changes in water temperature.

   A schedule this tightly packed is easily disrupted by a single delay.

   Similardisturbed, upset, unsettled

   Oppositeundisturbed, uninterrupted

   Note

   Here the participle has settled into a true adjective, and the test is grading: it takes more and most (more disrupted, most disrupted). The past participle reports that an event has already done the disrupting. This adjective describes how readily something is knocked off course, which is why it pairs so naturally with easily and readily.

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