perturbation

Borrowed from Middle French perturbation, from Old French perturbacion, from Latin perturbatio.

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

perturbation (countable and uncountable, plural perturbations)

1. (uncountable) Agitation; the state of being perturbed
   • 1611, Ben[jamin] Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy, London: […] [William Stansby?] for Walter Burre, →OCLC, Act IIII:

     Reſtore your ſelues, vnto your temper, Fathers; / And, vvithout perturbation, heare me ſpeake: […]

   • 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter V, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC:

     But her mind had never been in such perturbation; and it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till the usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet reflection.

2. (countable) A small change in a physical system, or more broadly any definable system (such as a biological or economic system)
   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Youth and Age. XLII.”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC, pages 247–248:

     Natures that haue much Heat, and great and violent deſires and Perturbations, are not ripe for Action, till they haue paſſed the Meridian of their yeares: As it was with Iulius Cæſar, and Septimius Seuerus.

3. (countable, astronomy, physics) Variation in an orbit due to the influence of external bodies

• cosmological perturbation theory
• perturbation theory

• perturb
• perturbatory

Borrowed from Latin perturbātiōnem.

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perturbation f (plural perturbations)

1. disturbance
2. derangement

• perturber

• → Romanian: perturbație

• “perturbation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.