"To distract" originally meant to rend into parts. It's from the Latin for "to draw in different directions, to pull asunder," and calls to mind the ancient torture of roping a man to horses and having them charge off in opposite directions. Distraction wrenches apart; it scatters and divides. The word also meant, as it does now, to draw someone from his or her actual destination, to perplex, and to derange in mind.
— Bonnie Friedman, Writing Past Dark