flustering

comparative more flustering · superlative most flustering

1. Agitated, confusing.

   She almost forgot Toby while she was bathed in this flustering brilliance of light and noise.

   2007, Frank Swinnerton, Coquette, READ BOOKS, page 39

   4 more examples

   To me it seems, Mabel, that whenever a thing is really grand and potent, it has a quiet majesty about it, that is altogether unlike the frothy and flustering manner of smaller matters, and so it was with them rapids.

   1840, [James Fenimore Cooper], The Pathfinder: Or, The Inland Sea. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, →OCLC, page 53

   There is always a flustering breeze in the air and a perturbation generally through the county when they come or go, […]

   1873 May 1 – December 22 (date written), Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published June 1875, →OCLC

   Although at times my prac experiences were flustering and frustrating, I have gained many new insights into catering for the individual needs of children.

   1997, Rosemary Perry, Teaching Practice: A Guide for Early Childhood Students, Routledge, page 57

   There is nothing more flustering than to wrestle with an unfamiliar piece of equipment in the presence of a class!

   2004, Geoffrey Petty, Teaching Today: A Practical Guide, page 361

2. obsoleteBoasting or bragging noisily; blustering, swaggering.

   And the Apoſtle [Paul] ſeems here moſt peculiarly to have directed this Encomium of the Gospel, as a Defiance to the Philoſophers of his Time, the Fluſtring Vain-glorious Greeks, vvho pretended ſo much to magnify, and even Adore the VViſdom they profeſſed, […]

   1694 May 8 (date delivered; Gregorian calendar); first published 1698, Robert South, “Christianity Mysterious, and the Wisdom of God in Making it so, Proved in a Sermon Preached at Westminster-Abbey, April 29. 1694.”, in Twelve Sermons upon Several Subjects and Occasions, volume III, London: […] Tho[mas] Warren for Thomas Bennet […], →OCLC, page 263

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of fluster