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• v  draw someone's attention away from something
  The thief distracted the bystanders
• v  disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed

• Scientists think female macaques may use grooming, too, to try to maintain social relationships within the group to benefit their offspring, or as a way to distract or appease .
• Orman, who has neither a husband nor children to distract her, takes single- mindedness to an almost unimaginable extreme.
• It is an attempt to distract Americans from the destruction of their ability to earn a living.

• deflect
• perturb
• unhinge
• disquiet
• trouble
• cark
• disorder

News & Articles

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• Rock On, Gold Dust Woman: Listening To Music Isn't A Distraction In The Car
  Nowadays, there's plenty of stuff to distract drivers from the task at hand. Cell phones. Bluetooth headsets. Kids. But you know what's not a distraction? You know what's hunky-dory? You know what might actually boost concentration in the car? Music. That's according to Ayca Berfu Unal, an environmental and traffic psychologist in Holland. She led...
  June 21, 2013 - The Car Connection
• Oracle Makes More Big Promises After Missed 4Q Earnings
  It's classic Larry Ellison: earnings for his company showing weakness? The CEO of Oracle will blame the market. Or try to distract investors with promises of better things to come. During yesterday's earnings call for Oracle's Q4 yesterday, things must have been pretty bad, since Ellison was apparently doing both. The database giant missed expectations for software sales and cloud computing ...
  June 21, 2013 - ReadWriteWeb
• Hands-Free Interactive Electronics Still Distract Drivers
  New car systems allow sending or receiving electronic messages using hands-free devices, but they are still major distractions to driving. Karen Hopkin reports
  June 20, 2013 - Scientific American via Yahoo! News

Quotes

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• Tony Hayward in Sydney Morning Herald
  These allegations will neither distract the company's focus on stopping the leak nor alter our commitment to restore the Gulf Coast,Mr Hayward said.
• Barack Obama in AFP
  Senator McCain and his operatives are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance,Obama told a giant crowd here, said by police to number at least 28,000 people.