Etymograph

English

trouble

Trouble comes from Old French troble, from the verb troubler, from Vulgar Latin *turbulō, ultimately from Latin turba ‘turmoil, crowd’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEturba1‘turmoil, disorder; crowd’
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEturbula1‘disorderly group’diminutive of turba
  3. Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*turbulō1reconstructed
  4. Old Frenchc. 842–1400troubler1
  5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400troble1
  6. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500trouble1
  7. Englishearliest quotation c. 1606trouble1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English trouble
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1606, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Macbeth: “Foul whisperings are abroad; unnatural deeds / Do breed…”.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEturbaWiktionary, English trouble‘turmoil, disorder; crowd’
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEturbulaWiktionary, English trouble‘disorderly group’diminutive of turba
  3. Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*turbulōWiktionary, English troublereconstructed
  4. Old Frenchc. 842–1400troublerWiktionary, English trouble
  5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400trobleWiktionary, English trouble
  6. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500troubleWiktionary, English trouble
  7. Englishearliest quotation c. 1606troubleWiktionary, English trouble. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1606, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Macbeth: “Foul whisperings are abroad; unnatural deeds / Do breed…”

The story

Verb is from Middle English troublen, trouble, borrowed from Old French troubler, trobler, trubler, metathetic variants of tourbler, torbler, turbler, from Vulgar Latin *turbulō, from Latin turbula (‘disorderly group, a little crowd or people’), diminutive of turba (‘stir; crowd’). The noun is from Middle English trouble, troble, from Old French troble, from the verb.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *(s)twerH- ‘to rotate, swirl, twirl, move around’

storm, stir, disturb, 5 more

through Latin turba ‘stir’

turbulent, 7 more

Today it means

noun A distressing or dangerous situation.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “trouble”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin turba / trouble

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