trouble

Verb is from Middle English troublen, trublen, turblen, troblen, borrowed from Old French troubler, trobler, trubler, metathetic variants of tourbler, torbler, turbler, from Vulgar Latin *turbulāre, from Latin turbula (“disorderly group, a little crowd or people”), diminutive of turba (“stir; crowd”). The noun is from Middle English truble, troble, from Old French troble, from the verb.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: trŭbʹəl; IPA^(key): /ˈtɹʌb(ə)l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɹʌb(ə)l/, /ˈtɹə-/

• Audio (GA)

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• Audio

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• Rhymes: -ʌbəl
• Hyphenation: trou‧ble

trouble (countable and uncountable, plural troubles)

1. A distressing or dangerous situation.

   He was in trouble when the rain started.

2. A difficulty, problem, condition, or action contributing to such a situation.
   • John Milton

     Lest the fiend […] some new trouble raise.

   • William Shakespeare

     Foul whisperings are abroad; unnatural deeds / Do breed unnatural troubles.

   The trouble was a leaking brake line.   The trouble with that suggestion is that we lack the funds to put it in motion.   The bridge column magnified the trouble with a slight tilt in the wrong direction.

3. A violent occurrence or event.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     “I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. What I won't stand is to have them togs called a livery. […]”

   the troubles in Northern Ireland

4. Efforts taken or expended, typically beyond the normal required.
   • Bryant

     She never took the trouble to close them.

   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

     Indeed, by the report of our elders, this nervous preparation for old age is only trouble thrown away.

   It's no trouble for me to edit it.

5. A malfunction.

   He's been in hospital with some heart trouble.   My old car has engine trouble.

6. Liability to punishment; conflict with authority.

   He had some trouble with the law.

7. (mining) A fault or interruption in a stratum.

• Verbs often used with "trouble": make, spell, stir up, ask for, etc.

• See also Thesaurus:difficult situation

• Appendix:Collocations of do, have, make, and take for uses and meaning of trouble collocated with these words.

trouble (third-person singular simple present troubles, present participle troubling, simple past and past participle troubled)

1. (transitive, now rare) To disturb, stir up, agitate (a medium, especially water).
   • Bible, John v. 4

     An angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water.

   • Milton

     God looking forth will trouble all his host.

2. (transitive) To mentally distress; to cause (someone) to be anxious or perplexed.

   What she said about narcissism is troubling me.

   • Bible, John xii. 27

     Now is my soul troubled.

   • Shakespeare

     Take the boy to you; he so troubles me / 'Tis past enduring.

   • John Locke

     Never trouble yourself about those faults which age will cure.

3. (transitive) In weaker sense: to bother or inconvenience.

   I will not trouble you to deliver the letter.

4. (reflexive or intransitive) To take pains to do something.

   I won't trouble to post the letter today; I can do it tomorrow.

5. (intransitive) To worry; to be anxious.
   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.26:

     Why trouble about the future? It is wholly uncertain.

• turbid
• turbulent

• trouble in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• trouble in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Boulter, boulter

Deverbal of troubler or from Old French troble.

• IPA^(key): /tʁubl/

• Audio

  (file)

trouble m (plural troubles)

1. trouble
2. (medicine) disorder

   trouble bipolaire

   bipolar disorder

trouble

1. first-person singular present indicative of troubler
2. third-person singular present indicative of troubler
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of troubler
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of troubler
5. second-person singular imperative of troubler

From Old French troble, probably from a Vulgar Latin *turbulus (with metathesis), itself perhaps an alteration of Latin turbidus with influence from turbulentus; cf. also turbula. Compare Catalan tèrbol, Romanian tulbure.

trouble (plural troubles)

1. (of a liquid) murky, turbid, muddy, thick, clouded, cloudy; not clear

• “trouble” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).