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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
Critics Lorraine Ali and Mary McNamara discuss where the show is headed for its fourth and final season, slated for 2028, and why “House of the Dragon” has had trouble gaining speed and altitude.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Reporter Justin Lahart examines why slow job growth doesn’t necessarily mean the labor market is in trouble.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
They were reacting to the little passes between Tielemans and Fernandes, which allowed United to ease their way out of trouble or move up the pitch.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
One movie to skip, and one not to miss: If you’re having trouble deciding what to watch this weekend, Sam Adams is here to help.
From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2026
Like Phineas, these patients with frontal lobe damage have trouble making decisions.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
“Let the day’s own troubles be sufficient for the day.”
From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2026
These troubles come as India's wider aviation sector faces pressure from rising costs, disrupted international routes due to the Iran war, aircraft delivery delays and tighter regulatory scrutiny.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
What troubles the team is that since problems arose surrounding redemptions at the end of the first quarter, the rise in risk assets has pushed the topic of private-credit risk off the radar.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
To Ilana Redstone, a sociologist who specializes in political polarization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, sociology’s troubles gained traction through the 1971 Supreme Court decision, Griggs vs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
With his death their troubles came to an end.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
For years, he was in a deeply troubled relationship with someone who brought a great deal of chaos into his life.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026
The burying of the hatchet is a great relief for Edwards, who was troubled by the tension between his colleagues during their time on “Good Day L.A.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
Law firm Kirkland & Ellis, the nation’s leading adviser to financially troubled companies, soon began filing many of its major bankruptcy cases in Houston, followed by other leading law firms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
Experts were troubled that the organization spent so much on Adams and his mother.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026
Meanwhile, down in South Carolina the assurances afforded slavery that so troubled Martin of Maryland struck many delegates as inadequate.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Now, one prominent economist is warning that the specific methods used by the Treasury and Federal Reserve to help prop up the struggling yen send a troubling message about the status of the greenback.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026
"The alternatives for getting cargo, whether that's hydrocarbons or container shipping, are really not great… it is really still troubling times with no clarity and no change of fortunes within sight."
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
Though it’s unclear what Moraff knew and when, he barely vetted Platner and stood by him as a stream of troubling revelations emerged.
From Slate ● Aug. 1, 2026
Experts still haven’t determined what’s causing the eagle’s troubling symptoms, including kidney inflammation and severe anemia.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
It was this static view of nature that Darwin found troubling.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
