Dictionary

troublous en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈtɹʌbləs/ (UK)

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English troublous, from Anglo-Norman troublous and Middle French troubleus, corresponding to trouble + -ous.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) Of a liquid: thick, muddy, full of sediment.
2. (archaic, literary) Troubled, confused; causing trouble; troublesome, vexatious.
   • By and by he fell into a troublous sleep—it seemed that he was going to be stoned, and then he was in battle, and then shipwrecked in the water–[…] 1953, James Baldwin, “Gabriel's Prayer”, in Go Tell It on the Mountain (Penguin Classics), London: Penguin Books, published 2001, →ISBN:
   • the mystery, the pervasive melancholy, the vaguely troublous forecast and retrospect which possess the mind in contemplating this sequestered spot, unhallowed save by the sense of a common humanity [...] 1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 1:
   • On thother side they saw the warlike Mayd Al in her snow-white smocke, with locks unbowned Threatning the point of her avenging blaed; That with so troublous terror they were all dismayd. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
   • The troublous Day has brawled itself to rest: no lives yet lost but that of one warhorse. 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):
   • The whole waited, for didn't there hang behind this troublous foreground the vast vagueness which the English themselves spoke of as "abroad"? 1917, Henry James, The Sense of the Past:
   • Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer's child, Dear heritor of Spenser's tuneful reed, With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled The weary soul of man in troublous need, And from the far and flowerless fields of ice Has brought fair flowers meet to make an earthly paradise. a. 1881, Oscar Wilde, 'The Garden of Eros', in Poems:

Forms

Deriveds

troublously · troublousness · untroublous