Gradually he began to be his old, distractable self.

It's no wonder he was "too irritable and too distractable."

"Only distractable, I fear," he answered, turning his palms up mock despair.

Stable work for his four horses can take a dreamy, distractable cowboy a couple of hours, and then there's a morning ride.

"He is too irritable; too distractable," she said.

The babies were unusually irritable, impulsive and distractable - a familiar triad of symptoms.

In a manic episode, the person is typically flighty and distractable, talking excitedly about idea after idea.

We're a big, distractable country.

Paroom looks distractable.

If they find any undesirable traits - too shy, too distractable, too exuberant - they withdraw that dog.

From the psychological assessment the smokers seemed to be more open in their expressions of feeling, somewhat more carefree, and somewhat more distractable.

What pained me most, though, was how unfocused I'd grown, how frivolous, how silly, how distractable.

He explained that he was expelled from school, though he was merely distrait, not méchant - distractable and undisciplined, that is, but not mean or bad.

For American children right now - especially the fidgety, the distractable and the extra-lively - their vulnerability is made worse by a ghastly convergence of social anxiety, overwhelmed and uninspired schools and widespread fixation on the bottom line.

In THE EYE LIKE A STRANGE BALLOON: Poems (Grove, paper, $13), the subjects are 52 works of visual art, among them 17 by the German postmodernist Sigmar Polke, whose distractable, inquisitive sensibility matches Bang's own.