1. A worried and unhappy state: There was so much anger and disturbance that Grace, the daughter of the arguing parents, left the house.
2. The state of disorder; a commotion: The was such a disturbance, racket, and, loud uproar outside that night that the older couple couldn't relax and sleep at all!
3. Something that interferes with something else: The loud disturbance outside the room made it very difficult to understand the speaker.
4. An outbreak of disorder; a breach of public peace: During the disturbance in the street, the crowd of people behaved violently and two were hurt seriously.
5. In meteorology, any cyclonic storm or low-pressure area, usually a small one: The strong wind disturbances finally passed and when the forest rangers saw the damaged trees, they started to clear up the forest.
6. In geology, a crustal movement of moderate intensity, somewhat restricted in area: The earthquake caused quite a disturbance , with deep faults and folds of the earth surface.

Noncultural activities, such as freeze-thaw cycles, landslides, and simple erosion, are also such disturbances of the earth.
7. An electrical or acoustic activity that can disturb communication: One disturbance can be the undesired echoes that interrupted the signals on a radar screen.
8. In archeology, the changing or altering of an archeological context by the effect(s) of an unrelated activity at a later time: Examples of such disturbances include dam building, farming, and heavy construction.

A disturbance is also the nonscientific removal of an artefact from its archaeological context.

Any agitation, disruption, or interruption of the state of equilibrium of the atmosphere: An atmospheric disturbance can take place in an area showing signs of a developing cyclonic circulation.

An atmospheric disturbance can be a periodic disruption in the fields of atmospheric variables, like surface pressure or geopotential height, temperature, or wind velocity, which may either propagate (traveling wave) or not (stationary wave).

Atmospheric waves range in spatial and temporal scale from large-scale planetary waves (Rossby waves or giant meanders, twists and turns, in high-altitude winds that are a major influence on weather) to minute sound waves.

1. A random or periodic electromagnetic occurrence that is superimposed on a desired signal.
2. An electromagnetic development, usually impulsive, that is superimposed on a desired signal.

The disturbance may be random or periodic.

1. An abnormal variation of the ion density in part of the ionosphere, commonly caused by solar flares.
2. A temporal variation in electron concentration in the ionosphere which is caused by solar activity and that makes the heights of the ionosphere layers go beyond the normal limits for a location, date, and time of day.