distraction

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French distraction, from Latin distractio.

noun

1. Something that distracts.
   … This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. I am sure, Lord Stranleigh, that he has been descanting on the distraction of the woods and the camp, or perhaps the metropolitan dissipation of Philadelphia, … 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad
   Poking one's eye is a good distraction from a hurting toe.
2. The process of being distracted.
   The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing",[…]and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. 2013-06-21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27
   We have to reduce distraction in class if we want students to achieve good results.
3. Perturbation; disorder; disturbance; confusion.
   It's true that the Copernican Systeme introduceth distraction in the universe of Aristotle. 1662, Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue 2)
4. Mental disarray; a deranged state of mind; insanity.
   The incessant nightmares drove him to distraction.
   […] if he speak the words of an oath in a strange language, thinking they signify something else, or if he spake in his sleep, or deliration, or distraction, it is no oath, and so not obligatory. 1673, Richard Baxter, Christian Directory
5. (medicine, archaic) Traction so exerted as to separate surfaces normally opposed.