trouble
Americanverb (used with object)
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troubles,
present (3rd person singular)
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troubled,
past participle, past
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troubling
present participle
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to disturb the mental calm and contentment of; worry; distress; agitate.
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to put to inconvenience, exertion, pains, or the like.
May I trouble you to shut the door?
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to cause bodily pain, discomfort, or disorder to; afflict.
to be troubled by arthritis.
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to annoy, vex, or bother.
Don't trouble her with petty complaints now.
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to disturb, agitate, or stir up so as to make turbid, as water or wine.
A heavy gale troubled the ocean waters.
verb (used without object)
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troubles,
present (3rd person singular)
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troubled,
past participle, past
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troubling
present participle
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to put oneself to inconvenience, extra effort, or the like.
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to be distressed or agitated mentally; worry.
She always troubled over her son's solitariness.
noun
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troubles
plural
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difficulty, annoyance, or harassment.
It would be no trouble at all to advise you.
-
unfortunate or distressing position, circumstance, or occurrence; misfortune.
Financial trouble may threaten security.
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civil disorder, disturbance, or conflict.
political trouble in the new republic; labor troubles.
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a physical disorder, disease, ailment, etc.; ill health.
heart trouble; stomach trouble.
-
mental or emotional disturbance or distress; worry.
Trouble and woe were her lot in life.
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an instance of this.
some secret trouble weighing on his mind; a mother who shares all her children's troubles.
-
effort, exertion, or pains in doing something; inconvenience endured in accomplishing some action, deed, etc..
The results were worth the trouble it took.
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an objectionable feature; problem; drawback.
The trouble with your proposal is that it would be too costly to implement.
- Synonyms:
- tribulation, trial, misfortune, affliction
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something or someone that is a cause or source of disturbance, distress, annoyance, etc.
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a personal habit or trait that is a disadvantage or a cause of mental distress.
His greatest trouble is oversensitivity.
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the Troubles,
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the violence and civil war in Ireland, 1920–22.
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the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, beginning in 1969.
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idioms
noun
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a state or condition of mental distress or anxiety
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a state or condition of disorder or unrest
industrial trouble
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a condition of disease, pain, or malfunctioning
she has liver trouble
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a cause of distress, disturbance, or pain; problem
what is the trouble?
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effort or exertion taken to do something
he took a lot of trouble over this design
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liability to suffer punishment or misfortune (esp in the phrase be in trouble )
he's in trouble with the police
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a personal quality that is regarded as a weakness, handicap, or cause of annoyance
his trouble is that he's too soft
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(plural)
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political unrest or public disturbances
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political violence in Ireland during the 1920s or in Northern Ireland between the late 1960s and the late 1990s
-
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the condition of an unmarried girl who becomes pregnant (esp in the phrase in trouble )
verb
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(tr) to cause trouble to; upset, pain, or worry
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to put oneself to inconvenience; be concerned
don't trouble about me
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(intr; usually with a negative) to take pains; exert oneself
please don't trouble to write everything down
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(tr) to cause inconvenience or discomfort to
does this noise trouble you?
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(tr; usually passive) to agitate or make rough
the seas were troubled
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(tr) to interfere with
he wouldn't like anyone to trouble his new bicycle
Synonym Usage
See care.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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troublednessnoun
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troublernoun
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overtroubleverb
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nontroublingadjective
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self-troubledadjective
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self-troublingadjective
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troubledadjective
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untroubledadjective
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troubledlyadverb
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troublinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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troublesimple
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troublessimple
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have troubledperfect
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has troubledperfect
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am troublingprogressive
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are troublingprogressive
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is troublingprogressive
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have been troublingperfect progressive
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has been troublingperfect progressive
Past
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troubledsimple
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had troubledperfect
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was troublingprogressive
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were troublingprogressive
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had been troublingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of trouble
First recorded in 1175–1225; (for the verb) Middle English troublen, from Old French troubler, from Vulgar Latin turbulāre (unrecorded), derivative of turbulus (unrecorded) “turbid,” back formation from Latin turbulentus “restless, unruly”; noun derivative of the verb; see turbulent
Explanation
Trouble is anything that causes difficulty, worry, and inconvenience, or that prevents you from doing something. If you have trouble getting along with a classmate, it is hard to be friendly with him or her. Whether you have trouble finding your shoes, you're in trouble with your teacher, or you go to a lot of trouble buying the kind of tea your sister likes, you face an annoying — and possibly distressing — difficulty. When you use trouble as a verb, it tells who or what is making life hard for you, like a headache that troubles you or childhood memories of encounters with scary clowns that probably trouble you even more deeply.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Anyone working for him now is just asking for trouble.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
Why would Slate go to the trouble of creating this alternate reality?
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
On Thursday, there were brief scuffles when police blocked protesters as they tried to hang a banner from a footbridge in the Thai capital, but there was no sign of trouble on Friday morning.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
He thinks there has been a change in culture, with more people speaking out about that kind of lifestyle, keeping the next generation out of trouble.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
There was trouble if we were caught without it.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
Puerto focuses on a more common scenario: As documented in “The Turnaway Study,” people who seek and are denied abortions are likely to struggle with poverty, debt, underemployment, and troubles with physical and mental health.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
He said he had weaved that with fictionalised details from his own life around 2002 when Zimbabwe's economic troubles began.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
The firms most at risk are relatively smaller—managing less than around $15 billion—and lack other lines of business that could help offset any troubles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
But he said the planned price increases — which are arriving after the price cuts failed to improve sales — suggested deeper troubles.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
All his troubles had been caused by trying to be helpful to Penelope, and now she would never even get to say, “Thank you” to dear, kind, perfectly nice Simon.
From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood
But, having seen how Brighton troubled his side, Arteta will be working to find solutions and make an unfamiliar challenge a more familiar one - as he did against Manchester City last season.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
The Third Reich bubbled up in a deeply troubled society of near-universal literacy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
He also did volunteer work at the Los Angeles International Dream Center, where he was welcomed warmly by the poor families and troubled youths who sought a fresh start there.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
That idea clashes with the classical expectation that each particle should possess its own separate physical reality, a feature of quantum mechanics that famously troubled Albert Einstein.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 29, 2026
However, more important things troubled the badger’s mind.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
But what we saw in the briefing room this week was far more troubling than one woman falling on her face.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
“This case is part of a troubling pattern where the Sheriff’s Department approves uses of force the independent Monitors find to be clearly out of policy,” Eliasberg said in a statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
“This whole idea that people aren’t allowed to mourn or remember is really troubling to me,” she said.
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2026
Nearly five decades of satellite observations reveal a troubling transformation in the Arctic, where sea ice is shrinking in both summer and winter, and much of the remaining ice is becoming younger and thinner.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 15, 2026
Every phone vibrates and dings in unison, a strange and troubling cacophony.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
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