different between involve vs distract

English

Alternative forms

• envolve

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin involv?.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?n?v?lv/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?n?v?lv/
• Hyphenation: in?volve

Verb

involve (third-person singular simple present involves, present participle involving, simple past and past participle involved)

1. (archaic) To roll or fold up; to wind round; to entwine.
2. (archaic) To envelop completely; to surround; to cover; to hide.
   • Black vapors, issuing from the vent, involve the sky.
3. To complicate or make intricate, as in grammatical structure.

   • the fallacies that are often concealed in florid, witty, or involved discourses.
4. (archaic) To connect with something as a natural or logical consequence or effect; to include necessarily; to imply.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost Book II

     He knows / His end with mine involved.

   • a. 1694, John Tillotson, Sermon

     The contrary necessarily involves a contradiction.
5. To take in; to gather in; to mingle confusedly; to blend or merge.
   • 1728-1743, Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

     The gathering number, as it moves along,
     Involves a vast involuntary throng.

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost Book II

     Earth with hell / To mingle and involve.

6. To envelop, enfold, entangle.

   He's involved in the crime.

7. To engage (someone) to participate in a task.

   How can we involve the audience more during the show?

   By getting involved in her local community, Mary met lots of people and also helped make it a nicer place to live.
8. (mathematics) To raise to any assigned power; to multiply, as a quantity, into itself a given number of times.

Synonyms

• imply
• include
• implicate
• complicate
• entangle
• embarrass
• overwhelm

Translations

See also

• involver
• voluble
• involute

References

• involve in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Latin

Verb

involve

1. second-person singular present active imperative of involv?

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin distractus, from distrah? (“to pull apart”), from dis- + trah? (“to pull”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?s?t?ækt/
• Rhymes: -ækt

Verb

distract (third-person singular simple present distracts, present participle distracting, simple past and past participle distracted)

1. (transitive) To divert the attention of.
2. (transitive) To make crazy or insane; to drive to distraction.

Related terms

• distracted
• distractible
• distracting
• distraction

Translations

Adjective

distract (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Separated; drawn asunder.
2. (obsolete) Insane; mad.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion song 6 p. 3[1]:

     (Alone shee beeing left the spoyle of love and death,

     In labour of her griefe outrageously distract,

     The utmost of her spleene on her false lord to act)

See also

• distraught

Anagrams

• adstrict