Turmoil

noun, verb

noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A state of great disorder or uncertainty. uncountable, usually

    "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."

  2. 2
    disturbance usually in protest wordnet
  3. 3
    Harassing labor; trouble; disturbance. uncountable, usually

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

  4. 4
    violent agitation wordnet
  5. 5
    a violent disturbance wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To be disquieted or confused; to be in commotion. intransitive, obsolete

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

  2. 2
    To harass with commotion; to disquiet; to worry. obsolete, transitive

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

Synonyms

All synonyms
agitationchaostumultadoagitationailment

Antonyms

All antonyms
peace

Example

More examples

"The dismissal of foreign minister Tanaka is symbolic of the continuing political turmoil."

Etymology

Unknown. First appears c. 1526. Perhaps from Old French tremouille (“the hopper of a mill”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.