Word.ws English Dictionary

tribulation

Syllables: tri·bu·la·tionUK/ˌtɹɪbjʊˈleɪ̯ʃən/US/ˌtɹɪbjəˈleɪ̯ʃən/

tribulation noun: any adversity; a trying period or event.

tribulation: any adversity; a trying period or event
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

tribulation (countable and uncountable, plural tribulations)

  1. Any adversity; a trying period or event.
    • What wit have we (poor fools) to wit what will serve us, when the blessed Apostle himself in his sore tribulation, praying thrice unto God to take it away from him, was answered again by God in a manner that he was but a fool in asking that request, but that the help of God's grace in that...1534, Thomas More, chapter VI, in A Dialoge of Comfort against Tribulacion, Made by Syr Thomas More Knyght, and Set Foorth by the Name of an Hūgariē, not before this Time Imprinted. B.L., London: In...
    • Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Romans 12:12

Proper noun capitalized: Tribulation

Tribulation

  1. (Christian eschatology) (A period of) persecution before the Second Coming, lasting seven years, which Christians will experience worldwide which will purify and strengthen them.

tribulation meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

tribulation in Tamil

பெருந்துயர், பெருந்தொல்லை, தீராபிரச்சினை, பேரிடர்

tribulation in Bengali

দারুণ ক্লেশ, মানসিক যন্ত্রণা

tribulation in Malayalam

കഷ്ടത, സങ്കടം, ക്ലേശം

tribulation in Kannada

ತೊಳಲಿಕೆ, ತೊಂದರೆ
More languagesFewer languages
tribulation in Arabic
مِحْنَة miḥna
tribulation in Indonesian
tribulasi

Examples of tribulation in a sentence

  • Baltimore's tribulations were indeed sore; there was no peace for him day nor night.1847, Herman Melville, chapter XI, in Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers...
  • It is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.1944 June 27, Herbert Hoover, speech in Chicago, Illinois, to the 23rd Republican National Convention; quoted in Linda Carol Harms Case...
  • Essentially stoic, passive characters, Kristina and the others triumph by surviving — by outliving their plagues and tribulations.2009 September 24, Richard Corliss, “Kristina: A new musical from the ABBA guys”, in Time, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2016:

All 12 example sentences with tribulation

Forms of tribulation

pluraltribulations

Plural of tribulation: tribulations

Origin of tribulation

From Middle English tribulation, from Old French tribulacion, from Late Latin trībulātiō (“distress, trouble, tribulation, affliction”), from Latin tribulāre (“to press, probably also thresh out grain”), from trībulum (“a sledge consisting of a wooden block studded with sharp pieces of flint or with iron teeth, used for threshing grain”), from terēre (“to rub”); see trite.

Proprialization from tribulation.

Words formed from tribulation

Words that rhyme with tribulation

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tribulation

What does tribulation mean?
Tribulation means any adversity; a trying period or event.
What is tribulation in Tamil?
Tribulation in Tamil is பெருந்துயர், பெருந்தொல்லை, தீராபிரச்சினை. See Tribulation meaning in Tamil.
How do you use tribulation in a sentence?
Baltimore's tribulations were indeed sore; there was no peace for him day nor night.
What part of speech is tribulation?
Tribulation can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce tribulation?
Tribulation is pronounced /ˌtɹɪbjʊˈleɪ̯ʃən/ (UK).
What is the plural of tribulation?
The plural of tribulation is tribulations.

Words near tribulation in the dictionary

  1. tribular
  2. tribulate
  3. tribulated
  4. tribulates
  5. tribulating
  6. tribulation
  7. tribulations
  8. tribulin
  9. tribuloid
  10. tribulosaponin
  11. tribulosin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tribulation (page history and authors); Tribulation (page history and authors); tribulation (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tribulation (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tribulation (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tribulation (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-tribulation.ogg.

Cite this entry: “tribulation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tribulation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.