distraction

Noun

distraction (countable and uncountable, plural distractions)

1. Something that distracts.
   • Poking one's eye is a good distraction from a hurting toe.
   • At last the Duke of Anjou arrived, dressed, as his brother said, to distraction.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 297
2. The process of being distracted.
   • We have to reduce distraction in class if we want students to achieve good results.
   • The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing",[…]and so on. But the real way to build a...2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27
3. Perturbation; disorder; disturbance; confusion.
   • It's true that the Copernican Systeme introduceth distraction in the universe of Aristotle.1662, Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue 2)
4. Mental disarray; a deranged state of mind; insanity.
   • The incessant nightmares drove him to distraction.
   • […] if he speak the words of an oath in a strange language, thinking they signify something else, or if he spake in his sleep, or deliration, or distraction, it is no oath, and so not obligatory.1673, Richard Baxter, Christian Directory
5. (archaic) Traction so exerted as to separate surfaces normally opposed.