Trouble
nounDifficulty, distress, or a situation causing worry or problems.
How to spell trouble
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce trouble
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does trouble mean?
- nounDifficulty, distress, or a situation causing worry or problems.
- verbTo cause worry, inconvenience, or distress to someone.
Trouble in a sentence
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noun
The new software caused endless trouble for the support team.
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verb
It would not trouble me to drive you to the airport.
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noun
She went to a lot of trouble to make the dinner perfect.
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verb
The persistent cough began to trouble his doctor.
Where does trouble come from?
Language of origin: French
The word trouble entered English in the 1200s from Old French troubler (also written trubler), meaning 'to stir up' or 'to disturb'. That French verb descended from an unrecorded Vulgar Latin form turbulare, built on the Latin turbula, a 'disorderly crowd' or 'little disturbance', itself a diminutive of turba meaning 'crowd, commotion, uproar'. The underlying idea is of muddying calm water by stirring it, which is why early uses of trouble described agitation and confusion before it settled into the modern sense of difficulty or distress. The same turba root surfaces in relatives like 'turbulent', 'disturb', and 'perturb', all of which still carry that flavour of stirring things up. The silent-looking 'ou' spelling, pronounced as a short 'uh', is a relic of the Old French vowel and is the main thing that catches writers out.
How the word is built
- troubl- (from Latin turbulare, to disturb)
- -e
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