Definition
Disconcerting is an adjective that describes something that causes a feeling of unease, confusion, or embarrassment. It is often used to describe situations or events that are unexpected or unsettling.
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Excerpts from News Articles
In early 2023, the global financial picture feels disconcertingly similar to 50 years ago. Inflation and the cost of living have both risen steeply, and a war and related energy supply problems have been widely labelled as a key reason for this pain. In autumn 2022, inflation reached double-digits in the UK and across the eurozone. Italy recorded 12.6% annual inflation while some countries, including Estonia, saw inflation go as high as 25%.
One of Jerusalem’s most disconcerting elements are settlements: the presence of Jewish Israeli homes on the eastern side of the city. According to the rights group Ir Amim, which works to ensure “dignity and welfare” for all Jerusalem residents, after 1967, successive Israeli governments expropriated around one-third of East Jerusalem to build large Jewish-majority neighbourhoods establishing the newly expanded boundaries of the city. For the most part, these areas have the feel of working-class suburbs, and people living there do not consider themselves settlers.
And then there are the many bizarre and sometimes patronising comments I’ve had, which, while a tad annoying, at least aren’t aggressive. This has come in the form of several overfamiliar male pedestrians shouting “boo” super loud at me while I cycle past them. This has happened when they are on the pavement just inches away from me and has felt disconcertingly invasive.
After three decades of working with synthesizers, drum machines, guitar pedals and computers, Bangalter says he found the constraints of classical music to be liberating. "There's somehow a fixed palette with the orchestral music, but there is still an infinity of things you can do with that fixed palette," he said. "In electronic music, there's some kind of infinity of sounds available to you. And somehow that infinity of sounds becomes a little bit troubling and disconcerting , and you don't even know anymore where to start in some sense."
The scheduling of two other meetings of a consultative forum on youth affairs (Y20) in Leh and Srinagar in occupied Kashmir was termed by the FO as “equally disconcerting ”.
In a traditional coming-of-age ritual, for instance, it marks the point at which the adolescent is no longer considered a child but is not yet recognized as an adult — betwixt and between, neither here nor there. Ask any teenager: Such a state of suspension can be a very disconcerting time to live through.
If one walks through Kabul's streets, one can see large numbers of beggars, including women and children, crowding in front of bakeries in the hope of getting a piece of bread for their family and hear street vendors complaining about the lack of sale and jobs, which reflect the abject poverty in the country. Life has become extremely hard for the people because many, including bread-winners, have lost their jobs. On top of that, the threats posed by the ISKP have been highly disconcerting for the public.
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The Chilean government’s newly announced plan to have the state take a majority stake in the lithium industry disconcerted business leaders, though analysts cautioned that the proposal appears to try to strike a middle ground between competing interests.
“PICTURED: Jackie Brown star Bridget Fonda, 59, looks unrecognizable as she’s seen on rare public outing” read the headline, with the article itself breathlessly announcing that, before the landscaping supply run, nobody had taken a photo of her for almost six months. And then days later, Fonda was caught again in public, looking visibly disconcerted by a Page Six reporter who tailed her through an airport car park repeatedly asking why she doesn’t act any more.
The Chilean government's newly announced plan to have the state take a majority stake in the lithium industry disconcerted business leaders, though analysts cautioned that the proposal appears to try to strike a middle ground between competing interests.
“What is really striking for folks is that there are no scalp symptoms. It doesn’t hurt, there’s no itching, but you can run your hands through your hair and you have a handful of hair. It can be really disconcerting to see that,” said Dr. Susan Massick, a dermatologist at Ohio State University, who has seen patients who have lost hair following weight loss surgery.
This is most disconcerting in his Wynne entry, EVERYTHING STINKS UNDER A STINKING HOT SUN, EVERYTHING GROWS UNDER A SEXY SEXY SUMMER SUN (after a pile of dead rats on a lovely flower bed in the rocks), based on memories of an incident when he was a “dish pig” in a tourist restaurant in The Rocks.
After a lifetime of constant pain, it was disconcerting to have none. He felt guilty for not being elated that he was finally well, but he mourned the years of lost potential that he had spent as a prisoner of sickle cell.
Especially men: Dimoldenberg subverts the cliche of the sleazy male chatshow host, leaving guys to parry her disconcerting advances without overstepping. “It’s quite bad, I never think about their nerves,” she admits.