Troublesome

How to spell troublesome

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce troublesome

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does troublesome mean?

1. adjectiveCausing difficulty, annoyance or anxiety; hard to deal with.

Troublesome in a sentence

• The troublesome printer jammed three times before the report was finished.

• A troublesome tenant kept the landlord on the phone for hours.

Where does troublesome come from?

Language of origin: French

The word joins two layers of English. The first part, 'trouble', came into Middle English in the 1200s from the Old French verb 'troubler', meaning 'to stir up, agitate or disturb'. That French word descended from the Latin 'turbulare', 'to make turbid or disordered', which was built on 'turba', meaning 'a crowd, a commotion, an uproar'. The second part, '-some', is a native Old English suffix (originally 'sum') used to form adjectives meaning 'tending to' or 'full of', the same ending seen in 'wholesome', 'tiresome' and 'handsome'. Put together, the word literally describes something that tends to disturb or cause commotion, a sense it has carried steadily since the 1500s. The spelling trap lives in the silent 'e' kept from 'trouble' before the suffix and in the unstressed '-ble' that the ear hears as a vague 'bul'.

How the word is built

• trouble (disturbance, difficulty)
• -some (Old English suffix meaning 'characterised by, tending to')