Where does “troublesome” come from?
Troublesome combines English trouble, from Latin turba meaning "crowd" or "disturbance," with English some, from Old English sum, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European sem- meaning "one."
troublesome (English): Causing trouble or anxiety
Definitions
- Causing trouble or anxiety
Ancestry of “troublesome”, step by step
troublesome traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English trouble
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | trouble | A distressing or dangerous situation; A... |
| 2 | Middle English | trouble | Murky, muddy, turbid, opaque |
| 3 | Old French | troble | turbulent; cloudy; clouded; strife; commotion |
| 4 | Old French | trobler | to trouble; to disrupt; to waylay |
| 5 | Old French | torbler | Alternative form of trobler |
| 6 | Vulgar Latin | turbulo | I disrupt, unsettle, agitate, upset, trouble,... |
| 7 | Latin | turbula | disorderly group, a little crowd or people;... |
| 8 | Latin | turba | stir, disturbance, tumult, uproar, trouble; mob,... |
| 9 | Ancient Greek | τύρβη | disorder, confusion, tumult; poetic rout, revelry |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | twerH- | to enclose, fence in; to grab, seize; to stir |