Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a distracting or perplexing manner.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Readers can judge whether the Flag of Country in Danger flapped soothing or distractively on the souls of men, that day.

    The French Revolution Thomas Carlyle 1838

  • Let no coachman whip fast, distractively with his rolling wheels, or almost at all, through these groups!

    The French Revolution Thomas Carlyle 1838

  • Like yesterday, when I started noting that as soon as things started getting even a little bit darker, everything would start getting truly, deeply, and distractively blue.

    Site Home Michael S. Kaplan 2010

  • •It will help users to interact with an automobile more easily and less distractively

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

  • Claymore is not a chinsy production, but whether a surface is shimmering with a distractively obvious digital effect, or a background that is intricately detailed, evokes the look of a prop set artificial environment, director Hiroyuki Tanaka does not manage to pull everything together.

    Ain't It Cool News - The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news. 2008

  • (figuratively speaking) with the maddest Waterloo-Crackers, exploding distractively and destructively, wheresoever the mystified passenger stands or sits; nay, in any case, understood to be, of late years, a vehicle full to overflowing, and inexorably shut!

    Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History Thomas Carlyle 1838

  • (politicians), corporate Press Relators, and Mainstream Media governors, "spiritual" leaders, and tank-thinkers amounts - as predictable as it is unfortunate - to the latest version of re-arranging the Titanic's deck chairs - distractively comforting, but, ultimately, absolutely unproductive.

    WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook 2009

  • (politicians), corporate Press Relators, and Mainstream Media governors, "spiritual" leaders, and tank-thinkers amounts - as predictable as it is unfortunate - to the latest version of re-arranging the Titanic's deck chairs - distractively comforting, but, ultimately, absolutely unproductive.

    WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook 2009

  • (politicians), corporate Press Relators, and Mainstream Media governors, "spiritual" leaders, and tank-thinkers amounts - as predictable as it is unfortunate - to the latest version of re-arranging the Titanic's deck chairs - distractively comforting, but, ultimately, absolutely unproductive.

    WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook 2009

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