Word.ws English Dictionary

driving to distraction

driving to distraction is the present participle and gerund of drive to distraction.

Meaning of drive to distraction

Verb

drive to distraction (third-person singular simple present drives to distraction, present participle driving to distraction, simple past drove to distraction, past participle driven to distraction)

  1. (excessive, transitive) To annoy (someone) so much that they cannot concentrate.
    • "[…]pray do this for us—pray do not drive to distraction a man who has loved you so well."1855 January 5, Anthony Trollope, The Warden, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    drive crazy, drive round the bend, drive up the wall

Questions about driving to distraction

What is driving to distraction the present participle and gerund of?
Driving to distraction is the present participle and gerund of drive to distraction.

Words near driving to distraction in the dictionary

  1. driving test
  2. driving tests
  3. driving the porcelain bus
  4. driving time
  5. driving times
  6. driving to distraction
  7. driving to drink
  8. driving trailer
  9. driving trailers
  10. driving truck
  11. driving under the influence

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: driving to distraction (page history and authors); drive to distraction (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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Cite this entry: “driving to distraction.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/driving_to_distraction. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.