Troubled

ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED¹.]

  1.  Physically agitated; of the sea, sky, etc., stormy; of water, wine, etc., stirred up so as to diffuse the sediment, made thick or muddy, turbid.

  Troubled waters (fig.), a state of agitation or disquiet.

1388.  Wyclif, Josh. xiii. 2. The troblid flood that moistith Egipt.

1581.  J. Walker, in Confer., IV. (1584), F f iij. It is troubled water when we mingle our workes and righteousnes with Gods.

1611.  Bible, Isa. lvii. 20. The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast vp myre and dirt.

1632.  Lithgow, Trav., I. 12. The Riuer Tyber [is] of a troubled and muddy colour.

1796.  Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 334. Jargon…. Heated to redness, and quenched in water, it becomes rifty, and troubled.

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xx. IV. 535. The sky was dark and troubled.

1864.  G. Musgrave, Ten Days Fr. Parsonage, II. iii. 98. An inadvertent inquiry would have brought us into troubled waters.

  2.  Disturbed; disquieted; disordered; agitated; afflicted. Also absol.

a. 1325.  Prose Psalter, l. 18 [li. 17]. Trubled gost is sacrifice to God.

c. 1450.  Capgrave, Life St. Aug., xv. 21. Augustine with a troubled mynde be-gan to loke up-on his felaw Alipius, and … cried: What suffir we?

1535.  Coverdale, 2 Esdras xv. 8. The innocent bloude of the troubled crieth vnto me.

1611.  Beaum. & Fl., Philaster, III. i. Medicine for a troubled mind.

1651.  Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxiii. 126. Some private partie of a troubled State.

1728.  Eliza Heywood, trans. Mme. de Gomez’s Belle A. (1734), II. 31. Philosophy could give his troubled Thoughts but little ease.

1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 127. The historian of this troubled reign.

1885.  ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ At Bay, vii. I wandered about the old scenes like a troubled ghost.

1894.  Hall Caine, Manxman, III. xxi. She slept a troubled sleep.