Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A state of distress, affliction, difficulty, or need.
  • noun A distressing or difficult circumstance or situation.
  • noun A cause or source of distress, disturbance, or difficulty.
  • noun Effort, especially when inconvenient or bothersome.
  • noun A condition of pain, disease, or malfunction.
  • noun Public unrest or disorder.
  • noun An instance of this; a disturbance.
  • noun Any of various conflicts or rebellions in Ireland or Northern Ireland, especially the period of social unrest in Northern Ireland beginning in 1969.
  • intransitive verb To afflict with pain or discomfort.
  • intransitive verb To cause to be anxious or worried.
  • intransitive verb To cause to have emotional or mental problems that interfere with social functioning.
  • intransitive verb To inconvenience; bother.
  • intransitive verb To agitate; stir up.
  • intransitive verb To take pains.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as troubly.
  • To stir up; agitate; disturb; put into commotion.
  • To disturb; interrupt or interfere with.
  • To disturb in mind; annoy; vex; harass; afflict; distress; worry.
  • To put to trouble, inconvenience, pains, or exertion of some kind: used conventionally in courteous requests: as, may I trouble you to shut the door?
  • Synonyms Afflict, Distress, etc. (see afflict); perplex, agitate, plague, pester, badger, disquiet, make uneasy, anxious, or restless.
  • To become turbid or cloudy.
  • To take trouble or pains; trouble one's self; worry: as, do not trouble about the matter.
  • noun Vexation; perplexity; worry; difficulties; trials; affliction.
  • noun Annoyance; molestation; persecution.
  • noun Disturbing, annoying, or vexatious circumstance, affair, or state; distress; difficulty.
  • noun A source or cause of annoyance, perplexity, or distress: as, he is a great trouble to us.
  • noun Labor; laborious effort: as, it is no trouble.
  • noun In law, particularly French law, anything causing injury or damage such as is the subject of legal relief.
  • noun A disease, or a diseased condition; an affection: as, a cancerous trouble.
  • noun In mining, a small fault. Also called a throw, slide, slip, heave, or check.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Troubled; dark; gloomy.
  • transitive verb To put into confused motion; to disturb; to agitate.
  • transitive verb To disturb; to perplex; to afflict; to distress; to grieve; to fret; to annoy; to vex.
  • transitive verb To give occasion for labor to; -- used in polite phraseology.
  • noun The state of being troubled; disturbance; agitation; uneasiness; vexation; calamity.
  • noun That which gives disturbance, annoyance, or vexation; that which afflicts.
  • noun (Mining) A fault or interruption in a stratum.
  • noun [Colloq.] to get into difficulty or danger.
  • noun to be at the pains; to exert one's self; to give one's self inconvenience.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A distressful or dangerous situation.
  • noun A difficulty, problem, condition, or action contributing to such a situation.
  • noun A violent occurrence or event.
  • noun Efforts taken or expended, typically beyond the normal required.
  • noun A malfunction.
  • noun Liability to punishment; conflict with authority.
  • noun mining A fault or interruption in a stratum.
  • verb transitive To disturb, stir up, agitate (a medium, especially water).
  • verb transitive To mentally distress; to cause (someone) to be anxious or perplexed.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from troubler, to trouble, from Vulgar Latin *turbulāre, alteration (influenced by Latin turbula, small group, diminutive of turba, crowd) of Late Latin turbidāre, from Latin turbidus, confused; see turbid.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Verb is from Middle English troblen, from Old French trobler, from Medieval Latin *turbulare, from Latin turbula ("disorderly group, a little crowd or people"), diminutive of turba ("stir, crowd"). The noun is from Middle English troble, from Old French troble,

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Examples

  • Now, all that that means is this: I don't know what your trouble is, but, if money can cure it, you _haven't got any trouble_.

    Writing for Vaudeville Brett Page

  • Although living under a monarchy, he could not help sneering at the kindness of those omnipotent governments who, in their paternal desire to spare the people they govern all trouble, would like to spare them even the “trouble of thinking.

    Abraham Lincoln. IV 1916

  • Annie said she thought she would at least like to go to the seaside somewhere during the summer, but "No," Lyra said; "it would be too much trouble, and you know, Annie, I always did hate _trouble_.

    Annie Kilburn : a Novel William Dean Howells 1878

  • That's also why cars from financially distressed companies lose their value -- part of the reason why companies like Chrysler are in trouble is because they depended on these large fleet purchases, which artificially inflate sales numbers but decrease the value of the vehicles.

    Cars That Lose Their Value Fastest Hannah Elliott 2010

  • That's also why cars from financially distressed companies lose their value -- part of the reason why companies like Chrysler are in trouble is because they depended on these large fleet purchases, which artificially inflate sales numbers but decrease the value of the vehicles.

    Cars That Lose Their Value Fastest Hannah Elliott 2010

  • That's also why cars from financially distressed companies lose their value -- part of the reason why companies like Chrysler are in trouble is because they depended on these large fleet purchases, which artificially inflate sales numbers but decrease the value of the vehicles.

    Cars That Lose Their Value Fastest Hannah Elliott 2010

  • That's also why cars from financially distressed companies lose their value -- part of the reason why companies like Chrysler are in trouble is because they depended on these large fleet purchases, which artificially inflate sales numbers but decrease the value of the vehicles.

    Cars That Lose Their Value Fastest Hannah Elliott 2010

  • The reason Bennett's in trouble is because he is a member of the political party that caused this economic meltdown in the first place.

    Public anger is 'why I am in trouble,' Bennett says 2010

  • ROBERTS: Well, and the Republicans tried to answer that at the end of last week, because one of the reasons that they are in trouble is that this label of the party of no has been sticking to them to some degree.

    President Obama Takes To The Campaign Trail 2010

  • ROBERTS: Well, and the Republicans tried to answer that at the end of last week, because one of the reasons that they are in trouble is that this label of the party of no has been sticking to them to some degree.

    President Obama Takes To The Campaign Trail 2010

Comments

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  • The Chinese ideogram for "trouble" shows two women living under one roof.

    (Disclaimer: I don't know Chinese, can anyone verify this?)

    April 20, 2008

  • Everything I know about Chinese symbols I learned from Japanese kanji, but looking at the symbol I can see how that would work. It looks like this if anyone's interested: 麻

    April 20, 2008

  • I'm being told 'hemp, flax'. Aren't those tree radicals?

    friesian.com/yinyang.htm (no idea how authoritative it is) says: 'It is sometimes said that the Chinese character for "trouble" shows two women under one roof. Such a character is possible, and would look like this see link, but there actually is no such Chinese character, though I understand that the myth lives on the internet.'

    April 20, 2008