Forms: 3–7 truble, (3 trubuil), 4–6 troble, -el(l, -il(l, -yll, -ul, trowble, (5 thruble, trobbyll), 5–6 trubel, trubble, troubel(l, trowbel, (-ill, -yll, -ul(l), 4– trouble. β. 4–6 turble, -el, -ill, 5 torble, -el, tourbel. [ME. a. OF. truble, turble (12th c.), torble, tourble, troble (13th c.), F. trouble (15th c.), f. tourbler, troubler to TROUBLE.]
1. Disturbance of mind or feelings; worry, vexation; affliction; grief; perplexity; distress.
Now often also in lighter use, expressing any degree, however slight, of embarrassment or ‘bother,’ or a condition of suffering some inconvenience or discomfort.
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 29. Godes spuses þat ise swote eise wiðute swuch trubuil.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 14. Out of the lond he put awey alle trobelle, And made of newe oure joies to be dobelle.
1509. Fisher, Fun. Serm. C’tess Richmond, Wks. (1876), 299. The greuaunce trouble and vexacyon of the good persone hath gretter cause of pyte … than of the euyll persone.
1535. Coverdale, Ps. lxxxv[i]. 7. In the tyme of my trouble I call vpon the.
1611. Bible, Job v. 7. Man is borne vnto trouble [earlier vv. labour, travail], as the sparkes flie vpward.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 96. The trouble of thy thoughts … in sleep.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, II. vi. In trouble to be troubled is to have your trouble doubled.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxiii. Her head was so carried with pain of body and trouble of mind.
1910. Stage Year Bk., 23. There are two services [of electricity] installed, to prevent trouble in case of a breakdown on the mains.
Mod. The family were in great trouble on account of the death of the eldest son.
b. With a and pl. An instance of this; a misfortune, calamity; a distressing or vexatious circumstance, occurrence, or experience.
1515. Barclay, Egloges, iv. (1570), C v/2. Graunt me a liuing sufficient … And voyde of troubles.
1560. Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 208. The Ambassadors were in a pecke of troubles.
a. 1591. H. Smith, Serm. (1637), 244. Troubles come in an hundred wayes.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. i. 59. To take Armes against a Sea of troubles.
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., iii. (1627), 20. The trouble is this: that when as my children doe first enter into Latine, many of them will forget to reade English.
1861. Paley, Æschylus (ed. 2), Choeph., 683, note. At the very time when his troubles seemed at an end.
1863. Reade, Hard Cash, I. 5. She was determined to share his every trouble.
c. transf. A thing or person that gives trouble; an occasion or cause of affliction or distress.
1596. Savile, Tacitus, Hist., IV. lxxvi. 228. The Germans … were … a kinde of vnprofitable troubles of a campe.
1610. Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 152. Alack, what trouble Was I then to you?
1611. Bible, Isa. i. 14. Your appointed Feasts … are a trouble vnto me, I am weary to beare them.
1709. Pope, Ess. Crit., 502. Then most our trouble still when most admir’d.
1859. Tennyson, Geraint & Enid, 1619. The useful trouble of the rain.
† d. Harm, injury, offence. Obs.
1463. Ashby, Prisoner’s Refl., 255. Seyntes … That suffred trowbyll with out resystence.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 281. The Fleminges did the French men great trouble.
2. Public disturbance, disorder, or confusion; with a and pl. an instance of this, a disturbance, an agitation.
[1378. Rolls of Parlt., III. 43/1. Le Roialme en diverses parties est mys en grant troboill.]
c. 1400. Apol. Loll., 87. Mansleyng, þeft,… corrupcoun,… trouby[l], periury.
c. 1435. Chron. London (Kingsford, 1905), 85. To eschew Rebellion, dysobeyssaunce and Trouble.
c. 1460. Fortescue, Abs. & Lim. Mon., xvii. (1885), 153. Wheroff hath comyn … mony gret trowbels and debates.
1550. Latimer, Last Serm. bef. Edw. VI., 105. It maketh troble and rebellion in the realme.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxx. 184. It is a hard matter to know who expecteth benefit from publique troubles.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual., i. [Then] the troubles happened: and Cromwell assumed the regency.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xvii. IV. 105. They were to be allowed to exercise any profession which they had exercised before the troubles.
β. c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 497/1. Torble, or torblynge…, turbacio.
1463. Plumpton Corr. (Camden), p. lxix. When any turble or enterprise was like to fall hurt or scaythe to the Kings people.
3. Pains or exertion, esp. in accomplishing or attempting something; care, toil, labor. Phr. to put to (the) trouble, to take (the) trouble.
1577. B. Googe, trans. Heresbach’s Husb., 35 b. Lupines … This pulse requireth least trouble.
1662. J. Davies, trans. Olearius’ Voy. Ambass., 248. That trouble we had been at, put us all in a sweat.
1729. Law, Serious C., iii. (1732), 31. If it costs me no pains or trouble.
1840. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life (1870), III. vii. 108. To be quit of the trouble and expense of the garden.
1856. Titan Mag., Dec., 525/1. He … did not care to put himself to the least trouble.
1866. Dk. Argyll, Reign Law, vii. (1871), 366. Wherever we take the trouble to trace any … phenomenon through the sequences of cause and effect.
1912. Oxford Mag., 14 Nov., 78/1. To save themselves the trouble of thinking.
4. a. A disease, disorder, ailment; a morbid affection.
1726. Wodrow Corr. (1843), III. 267. Riding … agrees much with my trouble which I am not altogether free of.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., III. 882. Perityphlitis due to trouble in the cæcum. Ibid. (1899), VIII. 16. Writer’s cramp and like troubles.
b. A woman’s travail. (Also of an animal.) dial. or euphem.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, s.v., She is now in her trouble.
1877. H. Smart, Bound to Win, i. Calvert came … and told me Veturia [the mare] was getting very close upon her trouble.
1889. M. Gray, Annesley, III. i. 95. He rode over the bleak downs to help Daniel Pink’s wife in her trouble.
1896. A. Lilburn, Borderer, xxix. 219. Come now, my canny woman, you must try and drink this, or you’ll never win through your trouble.
1901. M. E. Francis, Pastorals Dorset, 162. When I’m over my trouble I’ll come to see you.
5. In various other special applications, euphemistic, colloquial, dialectal, or vulgar. a. Unpleasant relations with the authorities, esp. such as involve arrest, summons before a magistrate, imprisonment, or punishment; e.g., to bring oneself into trouble, to get into trouble; to be in trouble, to be in jail (slang).
1560. Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 115. Lest they should both offend the Mayor, and bring themselues in trouble.
a. 1562. Cavendish, Wolsey (1893), 266. This gentilman … who hathe byn late in troble in the Tower of London.
1837. J. D. Lang, New S. Wales, II. 34. His wife very soon got into trouble, as it is technically termed in the colony; i.e. into the commission of some crime or misdemeanour, which issues in … flagellation, or imprisonment, or transportation, or death by the law.
1898. Mary Johnston, Prisoners of Hope, vii. 77. ‘My friend has been in trouble, it is true,’ he said, still very smoothly. ‘He will not make the worse conspirator for that.’
Mod. Take care what you say, or you’ll get into trouble.
b. Said of the condition of an unmarried woman with child.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, xxxi. On no account do you say a word of your Bygone Trouble to him…. Many a woman—some of the Highest in the Land—have had a Trouble in their time.
1891. Daily News, 26 Jan., 7/2. She said she consented to come to London to be married to the prisoner as she believed she was in trouble.
c. U. S. colloq. or slang. Public festivity; interruption or disturbance of ordinary work.
1884. C. T. Buckland, Sk. Social Life India, iii. 66. A day of rest comes in between each day of pleasure, or ‘trouble’ as the Yankees more rightly call it.
1897. Flandrau, Harvard Episodes, 313. That particular quarter … was not … the most decorous on Class Day. There is always more or less, what is technically known as ‘trouble’ … on Class Day afternoon.
6. Mining. A dislocation in a stratum; a fault (usually small).
1672. G. Sinclair, Misc. Obs. Hydrostaticks, 267. That alteration of course was not occasioned by any Gae, or trouble. Ibid., 276. Gae’s, and Dykes, which alters their natural course, being the occasion of so much Trouble, in the working of Coal, and following its course, the Coal-hewers call them ordinarily by that name Trouble.
1789. Brand, Hist. Newcastle, II. 680, note. Troubles [are] dikes of the smallest degree;… strata are generally altered by a trouble, from their regular site to a different position.
1859. R. Hunt, Guide Mus. Pract. Geol. (ed. 2), 228. The effects of these movements will be visible in faults, troubles, dykes, throws, or heaves (as in different localities they are named).
7. attrib. and Comb., as trouble-bearer, -cup, -hunter, -maker; trouble-free, -giving, -haunted, -proof, -saving, -tost, -void adjs. (See also TROUBLE v. 6.)
1559. Mirr. Mag., Mortimers, xiv. Seldome ioye continueth trouble voyde.
1608. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. III. Schism, 506. Art not thou hee that sow’st the Isaacian Plain With Trouble-Tares?
1648. Herrick, Hesper., Content, not Cates, 7. A little pipkin … Set on my table, trouble-free.
1807. Wordsw., White Doe, VII. 151. All now was trouble-haunted ground.
1850. Struthers, Poet. Wks., II. 244. Quaff’d it must be, life’s trouble-cup.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., lxv. I lull a fancy trouble-tost.
1878. A. Paul, Random Writ., 202. We think ourselves giants and trouble-proof until it [illness] overtakes us.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 3 Feb., 1/3. A most trouble-giving class.
1909. Daily Chron., 14 April, 7/5. A laugh is the best trouble bearer.
Hence † Troubleful a., full of trouble, troublesome (obs.); Troubleless a., free from trouble.
1588. J. Harvey, Disc. Probl., 71. To what end … haue they breathed out so loude, boisterous, and troublefull blasts?
1838. Mary Howitt, Birds & Flowers, Birds, ii. In a troubleless delight!
