turmoil
UK/ˈtɜːmɔɪl/
turmoil noun: a state of great disorder or uncertainty.
Noun
turmoil (usually uncountable, plural turmoils)
- A state of great disorder or uncertainty.
- Oleg Blokhin's side lost the talismanic Andriy Shevchenko to the substitutes' bench because of a knee injury but still showed enough to put England through real turmoil in spells.2012 June 19, Phil McNulty, “England 1-0 Ukraine”, in BBC Sport
- The Taoists developed their philosophy during an extended era of turmoil known as the Warring States period of Chinese history.2024 January 14, Charles Hugh Smith, Self-Reliance, Taoism and the Warring States
- Harassing labor; trouble; disturbance.
- And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil, / A blessed soul doth in Elysium.c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- The turmoil went on—no rest, no peace. […] It was nearly eleven o'clock now, and he strolled out again. In the little fair created by the costers' barrows the evening only seemed beginning; and the naphtha flares made one's eyes ache, the men's voices grated harshly, and the girls' faces saddened...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
Verb
turmoil (third-person singular simple present turmoils, present participle turmoiling, simple past and past participle turmoiled)
- To be disquieted or confused; to be in commotion.
- some notable sophister lies sweating and turmoiling under the inevitable and merciless delimmas of Socrates1642 April, An Apology against a Pamphlet Call’d A Modest Confutation of the Animadversions upon the Remonstrant against Smectymnuus, London: […] E[dward] G[riffin] for Iohn Rothwell, […], →OCLC
- To harass with commotion; to disquiet; to worry.
- It is her fatal misfortune […] to be thus miserably tossed and turmoiled with these storms of affliction.1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […]...
turmoil meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
turmoil in Hindi
- turmoil, chaos
- उत्पात utpāt
- turmoil , burning eagerness
- उफान uphān
turmoil in Tamil
- turmoil
- கலாட்டா kalāṭṭā
turmoil in Urdu
- ہلچل, ہنگامہ, اضطراب, کھلبلی, پکار, قیامت
turmoil in Bengali
- turmoil
- টলমল ṭolomol
More languagesFewer languages
- turmoil in Malayalam
- കോലാഹലം, വഴക്ക്, കലക്കം, ബഹളം
- turmoil in Kannada
- ಗದ್ದಲ gaddala
- turmoil in Arabic
- مَعْمَعَة maʕmaʕa
- turmoil in Persian
- هرج و مرج harj-o-marj, آشوب âšub
- turmoil in Vietnamese
- sự náo động
- turmoil in Myanmar
- အရှုပ်အထွေး a.hrup-a.htwe:
Examples of turmoil in a sentence
- The collapse of the gold standard brought about much of the economic turmoil of that era.
- Remembering the turmoil she experienced when her father left her mother, she vowed she would never be the other woman.
- The Trump curse meant this White House was in turmoil from the very first day.
Synonyms of turmoil
Forms of turmoil
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | turmoils |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | turmoils |
| present participle | turmoiling |
| past participle | turmoiled |
| past | turmoiled |
Origin of turmoil
Unknown. First appears c. 1526. Perhaps from Old French tremouille (“the hopper of a mill”).
Words formed from turmoil
Questions about turmoil
- What does turmoil mean?
- Turmoil means a state of great disorder or uncertainty.
- What is turmoil in Hindi?
- Turmoil in Hindi is उत्पात (utpāt), उफान (uphān). See Turmoil meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is turmoil?
- Turmoil can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce turmoil?
- Turmoil is pronounced /ˈtɜːmɔɪl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of turmoil?
- The plural of turmoil is turmoils.
Words near turmoil in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: turmoil (page history and authors); उत्पात (Hindi) (page history and authors); கலாட்டா (Tamil) (page history and authors); turmoil (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); টলমল (Bengali) (page history and authors); turmoil (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಗದ್ದಲ (Kannada) (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-us-turmoil.ogg.
Cite this entry: “turmoil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turmoil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.