disrupting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of disrupt.

   Protesters spent the morning disrupting traffic across the downtown core.

   The chairman accused him of disrupting the proceedings on purpose.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After be it builds the progressive (they were disrupting the meeting), and in noun positions it works as a gerund (accused of disrupting the proceedings). Because disrupt is transitive, both uses normally take a direct object. Beside confusion and interruption, the verb now carries a business meaning too: a company disrupting a market displaces an established product with a better one.

2. 2
   adjective

   Tending to break the normal course of an activity; causing disturbance or interruption.

   The committee removed several disrupting influences from the training program.

   Constant interruptions proved deeply disrupting to the team's morale.

   Similardisturbing, unsettling, distracting, troublesome, upsetting

   Oppositecalming, steadying

   Note

   An adjective you can tell from the participle by grading it: more disrupting, most disrupting, deeply disrupting. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Disintegration Machine (1929) uses its full physical force, imagining a "disrupting power" that scatters molecules, which means breaking things apart rather than merely interrupting them. In meaning it overlaps with disruptive, and before a noun it can blur into the verb form.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2