Word.ws English Dictionary

discombobulation

discombobulation noun: an embarrassing feeling that leaves a person confused.

Noun

discombobulation (countable and uncountable, plural discombobulations)

  1. (humorous) An embarrassing feeling that leaves a person confused.
    • Prophet of o'er-population, your ingenious calculation,
      Causeth discombobulation only in the anxious mind1890 September 20, “The Ravenstein”, in Punch; or, The London Charivari, page 138
    • This quality or state of not having your act quite together lacks its own word in the dictionary. It is something short of discombobulation, but the mild, mental chafing is irritating enough to demand a remedy.2012 June 8, Ron Lieber, “Planning a Financial Tuneup”, in The New York Times
  2. A confused or disorderly state.
    • What has changed since the time of Looney Tunes is the discombobulation of characters' faces. Eyeballs constantly bulge beyond normal proportion to show shock or jubilation; cheeks shrink, sag or even bend in shame, fatigue or anger. Each emotion is heightened, overemphasized with cubist...2005 July 8, Ned Martel, “Manically Happy Campers and Rich but Vicious Cats”, in The New York Times

Forms of discombobulation

pluraldiscombobulations

Origin of discombobulation

From discombobulate + -ion.

Words formed from discombobulation

Questions about discombobulation

What does discombobulation mean?
Discombobulation means an embarrassing feeling that leaves a person confused.
What part of speech is discombobulation?
Discombobulation is a noun.
What is the plural of discombobulation?
The plural of discombobulation is discombobulations.

Words near discombobulation in the dictionary

  1. discombobulated
  2. discombobulatedly
  3. discombobulates
  4. discombobulating
  5. discombobulatingly
  6. discombobulation
  7. discombobulations
  8. discombobulative
  9. discombobulator
  10. discombobulators
  11. discombooberate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: discombobulation (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-discombobulation.wav.

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