Literary notes about perturb (AI summary)
In literature, "perturb" is employed to convey both internal unrest and external disruption. Authors use it to depict a character’s emotional agitation—whether it be sudden terror, as when a character is visibly shaken ([1]), or a calm façade that belies inner disquiet ([2], [3])—while also applying the term to external phenomena such as the disturbance of celestial bodies or the alteration of established orders ([4], [5], [6]). This dual usage enriches the narrative texture; it links the psychological states of characters to broader thematic elements, highlighting shifts from personal turmoil to cosmic imbalance ([7], [8], [9]).
- Those questions seemed to perturb her, for of a sudden she cried loudly, indeed she almost shrieked in terror: “Ah!
— from The Stretton Street Affair by William Le Queux - Tilda caught her breath and held tight; but the pace did not seem to perturb the boy, who sat with his lips parted and his gaze fixed ahead.
— from True Tilda by Arthur Quiller-Couch - But the agony of his spirit does not perturb the submission of his soul, nor shake the steadfastness of his purpose.
— from Thoughts on Missions by Sheldon Dibble - No, for then it would perturb Saturn and Jupiter also, and they were not perturbed by it.
— from The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 17 - Being so small any large surface features of Mars would probably act to perturb the orbit of the satellite.
— from The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays by John Joly - They are like revolutionists who upset and perturb an old order, and set up a new and minuter tyranny in its place.
— from Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic by William Wallace - It was not what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out there in which he had now no part could perturb him.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - And how, indeed, beyond all any, that stormy and perturb'd age!
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman - Therefore, Atheism did never perturb States; but Superstition hath been the confusion of many.
— from Good Sense by Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
