turmoil

Unknown. First recorded in 1520. Perhaps from Old French tremouille (“the hopper of a mill”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtɜːmɔɪl/

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turmoil (usually uncountable, plural turmoils)

1. A state of great disorder or uncertainty.
   • 2012 June 19, Phil McNulty, “England 1-0 Ukraine”, in BBC Sport:

     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.

   • 2024 January 14, Charles Hugh Smith, Self-Reliance, Taoism and the Warring States‎^[1]:

     The Taoists developed their philosophy during an extended era of turmoil known as the Warring States period of Chinese history.

2. Harassing labour; trouble; disturbance.
   • 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]:

     And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil, / A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

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

• chaos, disorder

turmoil (third-person singular simple present turmoils, present participle turmoiling, simple past and past participle turmoiled)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To be disquieted or confused; to be in commotion.
   • 1642 April, John Milton, An Apology for Smectymnuus; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC:

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

2. (obsolete, transitive) To harass with commotion; to disquiet; to worry.
   • 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:

     It is her fatal misfortune […] to be thus miserably tossed and turmoiled with these storms of affliction.

• “turmoil”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “turmoil”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “turmoil”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “turmoil”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.