Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell distract

hear itdis·tract/dɪ'strækt/verbHidden vowels

What it means: To draw attention away.

In a sentence: The puppy tried to distract me while I was doing my homework.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as distrackt or distractt.

Same family: distracts, distracted, distracting, distraction, distractingly. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Distract” comes from Latin *distrahere*, meaning “to draw in different directions” or “to pull apart.” Over time, the physical idea of pulling apart turned into the mental idea of pulling your attention away from something.

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