discomfit

Warhol also embraced camp as a personal style, performing a theatrical effeminacy that equated to a strategic queerness designed to discomfit those among his contemporaries who held him to be "too swish."

From Salon ● Feb. 19, 2022

And the spectacle of nonviolent suffering in a just cause had the potential to discomfit witnesses and render violent and intimidating reprisals less effective.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 3, 2021

She raised a cry certain to discomfit partisans.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2020

But if Mr. Torn’s performance is meant to discomfit us in the same way Swan’s performances discomfited them, I’m not sure the equivalence is a justification.

From New York Times ● May 2, 2019

His affection for the little man increased mightily, but his respectful attitude promptly changed, and a chance to reprove or discomfit his absurdly rich brother-in-law was one of his most satisfactory diversions.

From Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

That trajectory is unlikely to change as uncertainty over the deal discomfits advertisers, the main source of Twitter’s revenue.

From New York Times ● Jul. 11, 2022

But in all dealings with Saudi Arabia, Mr. Biden should stand by the principles that Khashoggi so passionately cared for, however much it discomfits the pouty monarch in Riyadh.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 25, 2022

Whatever it meant in the past, and however it discomfits the present, the Aeneid has, alas, always anticipated the future.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 8, 2018

“Little Panic” grips and discomfits in the best way.

From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2018

It is simply an exercise of intellectual gladiatorship, in which the man who has the most skill and muscle discomfits his antagonist.

From Benjamin Franklin A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago American Pioneers and Patriots Series by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

It felt a bit like being in a group therapy session in which you alone are the primary and discomfited focus.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026

And, often, getting discomfited slightly helps that process along.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2024

But he was discomfited by the capricious bounces of last month’s US Open at Pinehurst, a rare event where he failed to trouble the leaderboard operatives.

From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2024

The result is both thought-provoking and readable, though Willis Aronowitz's frankness has provoked a lot of discomfited responses.

From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2022

Clippinger, considerably discomfited by this vision, exclaimed, “Sir! Good sir! Some supper!”

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

Either way, the onetime roommates and bandmates pioneered a discomfiting broken-doll aesthetic of smudged eyeliner, smeared lipstick and plastic barrettes clipped to hanks of bleached-out hair.

From Salon ● Jun. 12, 2026

Her sister Jessica advised a subtle but discomfiting grip change after a two-over-par opening 73 in which she repeatedly lost drives to the right.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026

He did not have to ask how his editorial oversight had failed to spot a discomfiting level of undisclosed A.I. use.

From Slate ● Apr. 17, 2026

“Giant” is a probing character study that raises the discomfiting question of how a man of intelligence and imagination could hold such atavistic and pernicious views.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026

It was discomfiting to observe how Kimberly lurched, keen to do the right thing and not knowing what the right thing was.

From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie