troublesome

Etymology

It is formed from English trouble + -some,^[2][3][4][5] from the noun.^[2][3] Trouble came into Middle English about 1200 from Old French truble (“trouble, disturbance”), from trubler (“to disturb, make cloudy”), a metathesis of torbler, from Vulgar Latin *turbulō, from Late Latin turbidō (“to make turbid”), from Latin turbidus (“turbid”).^[3] Compare troubled and troublous.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Full of disturbance; disorderly, unsettled: 1548, in Hall's chronicle The Union, a sense obsolete after 1687.^[2] Etymonline and Dictionary.com date the word to the 1540s,^[3][5] and MWU gives 1542 as its first known use, for the sense "requiring sustained effort".^[6]

Semantic evolution

The first senses described a state of disorder: turbulent (1552–1687), stormy (1560–1623), and full of affliction or distress (1552), which survives as an archaic sense.^[2] The main modern sense, causing trouble, annoyance or worry, appears in 1573 in Gabriel Harvey's letter-book,^[2] or in the 1570s according to Etymonline,^[3] and the sense "laborious, wearisome" from 1576, now rare.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "full of molestation; vexatious; uneasy; afflictive" and as "burdensome; tiresome; wearisome", quoting Shakespeare's How troublesome it sat upon my head.^[7]

Timeline

• 1542 – requiring sustained effort, laborious.^[6]
• 1548 – full of disturbance, disorderly (obsolete after 1687).^[2]
• 1552 – turbulent; troubled, distressed.^[2]
• 1560 – stormy (obsolete after 1623).^[2]
• 1573 – causing trouble, annoyance or worry.^[2]
• 1576 – laborious, wearisome.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing trouble, annoyance or worry; difficult to deal with: a troublesome cough that kept him awake.^[8][6][2][4]
2. Needing a great deal of effort or attention; laborious.^[6][2][7]
3. (archaic) Marked by disturbance or violence; turbulent.^[8][6][2]
4. (archaic) Troubled or afflicted; distressed.^[6][2]

Word family

• troublesomely
• troublesomeness

Related words

• trouble
• troublous
• turbid
• disturb

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins