turmoil

plural turmoils

1. uncountableusuallyA state of great disorder or uncertainty.

   It is many years now since this colossus of crime suddenly ceased keeping the world in a turmoil; […].

   1910 July 23, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Blue Cross”, in The Innocence of Father Brown, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, published 1911, →OCLC

   5 more examples

   In the turmoil of her anxiety for her lover she had agreed to marry him; but the perception that had accompanied her happiest hours on this account was rather that of self-sacrifice than of promotion and honour.

   1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC

   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

   Ed Sheeran has opened a solo concert in Philadelphia with comments about Gaza, saying what’s happening is “catastrophic and unjustifiable”, in his first show since his tour was plunged into turmoil.

   2026 September 20, “Ed Sheeran says situation in Gaza ‘unjustifiable’ in first show since tour plunged into turmoil”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   As the fighting in the Middle East intensifies without clear sign of a resolution, financial markets have been thrown into renewed turmoil.

   2026 September 20, Richard Partington, Graeme Wearden, “Are global stock markets heading for a crash?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: chaos, disorder

2. uncountableusuallyHarassing 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 Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii]

   3 more examples

   A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of applause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage.

   1891, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC

   There was a turmoil in the audience—someone screamed, two ladies in the front row fell senseless from their chairs, and there was a general movement upon the platform to follow their chairman into the orchestra.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

   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 one.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

present singular third person turmoils · participle present turmoiling · participle past turmoiled · past turmoiled

1. intransitiveobsoleteTo be disquieted or confused; to be in commotion.

   Lord, who would liue turmoyled in the Court, / And may enioy such quiet walkes as these?

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene x]

   1 more example

   some notable sophister lies sweating and turmoiling under the inevitable and merciless delimmas of Socrates

   1642 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

2. obsoletetransitiveTo 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 […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC