turmoil

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English

Etymology

Unknown. First recorded in 1520. Perhaps from Old French tremouille (“the hopper of a mill”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈtɜːmɔɪl/
  • Audio (US)(file)

Noun

turmoil (usually uncountable, plural turmoils)

  1. A state of great disorder or uncertainty.
    • 2012 June 19, Phil McNulty, “England 1-0 Ukraine”, in BBC Sport:
      Oleg Blokhin's side lost the talismanic Andriy Shevchenko to the substitutes' bench because of a knee injury but still showed enough to put England through real turmoil in spells.
    • 2024 January 14, Charles Hugh Smith, Self-Reliance, Taoism and the Warring States‎:
      The Taoists developed their philosophy during an extended era of turmoil known as the Warring States period of Chinese history.
  2. Harassing labour; trouble; disturbance.
    • c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :
      And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil, / A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      The turmoil went on—no rest, no peace. […] It was nearly eleven o'clock now, and he strolled out again. In the little fair created by the costers' barrows the evening only seemed beginning; and the naphtha flares made one's eyes ache, the men's voices grated harshly, and the girls' faces saddened one.

Synonyms

Translations

Verb

turmoil (third-person singular simple present turmoils, present participle turmoiling, simple past and past participle turmoiled)

  1. (obsolete, intransitive) To be disquieted or confused; to be in commotion.
    • 1642 April, John Milton, An Apology for Smectymnuus; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, , Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC:
      some notable sophister lies sweating and turmoiling under the inevitable and merciless delimmas of Socrates
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To harass with commotion; to disquiet; to worry.
    • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande , Dublin: Societie of Stationers, , →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland  (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: Society of Stationers, Hibernia Press, y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:
      It is her fatal misfortune […] to be thus miserably tossed and turmoiled with these storms of affliction.

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