upset
/ʌpˈsɛt/ adjective, noun, verb
Forms upsets upsetting
- adjective (of a person, predicative only) Angry, distressed, or unhappy “He was upset when she refused his friendship.”
- adjective (of a stomach or gastrointestinal tract) Feeling unwell, nauseated, or ready to vomit. “His stomach was upset, so he didn't want to move.”
- noun (uncountable) Disturbance or disruption. “My late arrival caused the professor considerable upset.”
- noun (countable, sports, politics) An unexpected victory of a competitor or candidate that was not favored to win.
- noun (automobile insurance) An overturn.
- noun An upset stomach.
- noun (mathematics) An upper set; a subset (X,≤) of a partially ordered set with the property that, if x is in U and x≤y, then y is in U.
- noun (aviation) The dangerous situation where the flight attitude or airspeed of an aircraft is outside the designed bounds of operation, possibly resulting in loss of control.
- noun (basketry) A woven row supporting the foundation rods for the uprights of a basket.
- verb (transitive) To make (a person) angry, distressed, or unhappy. “I’m sure the bad news will upset him, but he needs to know.”
- verb (transitive) To disturb, disrupt or adversely alter (something). “Introducing a foreign species can upset the ecological balance.”
- verb (transitive) To tip or overturn (something).
- verb (transitive) To defeat unexpectedly. “Truman upset Dewey in the 1948 US presidential election.”
- verb (intransitive) To be upset or knocked over. “The carriage upset when the horse bolted.”
- verb (obsolete) To set up; to put upright.
- verb (metalworking) To thicken and shorten a soft or heated piece of metal, by forging or hammering on the end, to shape, for example, rivets or internal combustion engine valves.
- verb To shorten (a tire) in the process of resetting, originally by cutting it and hammering on the ends.
Synonyms
sore unstrung angry distressed and unhappy in a tizzy disruption disturbance distraction anger distress forset sadden affront aggravate antagonize awrath burn up cheese off cross embitter perturbation derangement overthrow disorder swage overturn turnover discompose untune disconcert
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English upset (“the act of setting up; establishment”), from Middle English upsetten, corresponding to up- + set. Cognate with Middle Low German upset (“setup; arrangement”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To set up; to put upright. [Obs.] "With sail on mast upset." R. of Brunne.
- verb To overturn, overthrow, or overset; as, to upset a carriage; to upset an argument. "Determined somehow to upset the situation." Mrs.
- verb To become upset.
- adjective Set up; fixed; determined; --used chiefly or only in the phrase upset price; that is, the price fixed upon as the minimum for property offered in a public sale, or, in an auction, the price at which property is set up or started by the auctioneer, and the lowest price at which it will be sold.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “upset”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details