Meanings
comparative more troublous · superlative most troublous
- archaicliteraryTroubled, confused; causing trouble; troublesome, vexatious.
The troublous Day has brawled itself to rest: no lives yet lost but that of one warhorse.
1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number)5 more examples
On thother side they saw the warlike Mayd Al in her snow-white smocke, with locks unbowned Threatning the point of her avenging blaed; That with so troublous terror they were all dismayd.
1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLCMorris, our sweet and simple Chaucer's child, Dear heritor of Spenser's tuneful reed, With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled The weary soul of man in troublous need, And from the far and flowerless fields of ice Has brought fair flowers meet to make an earthly paradise.
a. 1881, Oscar Wilde, 'The Garden of Eros', in Poemsthe mystery, the pervasive melancholy, the vaguely troublous forecast and retrospect which possess the mind in contemplating this sequestered spot, unhallowed save by the sense of a common humanity [...]
1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 1The whole waited, for didn't there hang behind this troublous foreground the vast vagueness which the English themselves spoke of as "abroad"?
1917, Henry James, The Sense of the PastBy and by he fell into a troublous sleep—it seemed that he was going to be stoned, and then he was in battle, and then shipwrecked in the water–[…]
1953, James Baldwin, “Gabriel's Prayer”, in Go Tell It on the Mountain (Penguin Classics), London: Penguin Books, published 2001, →ISBN
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectivefull of trouble
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Middle Frenchtroubleus
- Anglo-Normantroublous
- Middle Englishtroublous
- Englishtroublous
Inherited from Middle English troublous, from Anglo-Norman troublous and Middle French troubleus, corresponding to trouble + -ous.
More words from Middle English, Anglo-Norman, Middle French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
troublous. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/troublous
“troublous.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/troublous. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “troublous,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/troublous.
Source: troublous on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.