perturbation
noun
perturbation is spelled P-E-R-T-U-R-B-A-T-I-O-N. The wrong spelling people search most is pertubation: about 130 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Perturbation is a noun meaning “Agitation; the state of being perturbed”. The plural of perturbation is perturbations.
How many letters and syllables are in perturbation?
| Letters | 12: P-E-R-T-U-R-B-A-T-I-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 43,663rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, pertubation, about 130 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell perturbation?
Perturbation is spelled P-E-R-T-U-R-B-A-T-I-O-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for perturbation in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is perturbation?
Perturbation appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 43,663rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce perturbation?
- US
Perturbation has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vininn126-perturbation.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of perturbation
- perturbations plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does perturbation mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Agitation; the state of being perturbed.
- 2
A small change in a physical system, or more broadly any definable system (such as a biological or economic system).
- 3
Variation in an orbit due to the influence of external bodies.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Perturbation in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense agitation:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | perturbation |
| German | Störung |
| Portuguese | perturbação |
| Spanish | perturbación |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does perturbation come from?
Borrowed from Middle French perturbation, from Old French perturbacion, from Latin perturbatio.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).