Home British & World English disrupt

Definition of disrupt in English:

disrupt

verb

[with object]

1Interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem.
‘flooding disrupted rail services’
- ‘The contest became a target in 1970 when women protesters disrupted the event.’
- ‘Regular mealtimes and other activities are not disrupted by the arrival of a child.’
- ‘We trust that the courts will not allow the first of these matters to be abused by those intent on disrupting the arbitral process.’
- ‘Strike action would disrupt performances in the company's current summer festival season.’
- ‘Such categorization often results in intellectual stereotyping that disrupts the process of equipping students for ministry.’
- ‘Martin later made a point of thanking the pickets for not disrupting the event.’
- ‘It will specifically target offenders and disrupt their activities.’
- ‘Then they have these people coming out, disrupting the election procedures.’
- ‘The notion that a small group would disrupt the event for reasons of self-interest will be regarded as distasteful.’
- ‘They also play havoc with IP transmissions by disrupting the acknowledgement process.’
- ‘Suffragettes were jailed for offences ranging from disrupting political meetings or refusing to pay taxes, to assault.’
- ‘It only defers its end by disrupting the social event with which it begins.’
- ‘All of this in spite of insurgents' efforts to disrupt the reconstruction process.’
- ‘The participants had no intention of disrupting the special session.’
- ‘The roof structure itself can be added on to, again, without disrupting the ongoing activities of the airport.’
- ‘Arrangements also have to be made for visitors to view it, without disrupting the daily activities of the embassy.’
- ‘We've done a great deal to disrupt their activity and influence the flow of money.’
- ‘They were targeted after police visited or monitored their homes in a bid to to disrupt their activities.’
- ‘Police said they had mounted the operation to ensure the safety of those attending the club and to disrupt criminal activities.’
- ‘It is feared that low-flying seagulls could disrupt events such as beach volleyball.’
throw into confusion, throw into disorder, throw into disarray, cause confusion in, cause turmoil in, play havoc with, derange, turn upside-down, make a mess of
View synonyms
1. 1.1 Drastically alter or destroy the structure of.
  ‘alcohol can disrupt the chromosomes of an unfertilized egg’
  ‘There was a major effort to disrupt the enemy's command structure on Thursday morning.’
  ‘In the shaken solution - which disrupts spatial structure - the ancestral morph persisted solitarily.’
  ‘It was designed to concentrate firepower to disrupt and destroy the opponent's military capability.’
  ‘A hydronium ion, however, disrupts this structure because it can accommodate a maximum of three hydrogen bonds.’
  ‘Every circumstance in church life offers an opportunity for the forces of the abyss to disrupt and destroy.’
  ‘The warning flag goes up for excessive alcohol, as it disrupts some sleep patterns and can result in increasing fatigue.’
  ‘Monetary policy can never have a neutral effect on an economy because it disrupts the production structure and relative prices.’
  ‘This disrupts the concentration gradients and so alters the natural design.’
  ‘Applying an irritant chemical to the membrane disrupts the ordered structure: the dye is released and the globular proteins undergo conformational changes.’
  ‘Defects disrupting the structural integrity of a particular state will affect adjacent states.’
  ‘It is an antistructuralist reading, one that disrupts both the structures within the text and those that frame it.’
  ‘This means we're disrupting their activities, because they have to move to another border crossing.’
  ‘This could have led to disruption of a turn, and thus disrupting global structure.’
  ‘Alkylating agents function by reacting with and disrupting the structure of DNA.’
  ‘When the dingoes are persecuted, however, it disrupts the social structure of dingo packs and leads to crossbreeding.’
  ‘It is a rational decision procedure based upon the insight that terror disrupts social structures.’
  ‘PyrR binding in turn disrupts the structure of the antiterminator hairpin.’
  ‘The research has developed a technique which disrupts the process of replication by selecting genes carrying the virus and killing them.’
  ‘These changes profoundly altered society by disrupting traditional patterns of domestic life and language.’
  ‘Of course the problem is that this text disrupts an argument that was clearly structured according to the principles of a Complete Argument.’
  ‘Where insertion does not disrupt the structural gene, the activity is expressed, killing the cell.’
  ‘The beetles kill trees by disrupting their water- and nutrient-carrying tissues.’
  distort, damage, buckle, warp
  View synonyms