different between trouble vs perplexity

English

Etymology

Verb is from Middle English troublen, trublen, turblen, troblen, borrowed from Old French troubler, trobler, trubler, metathetic variants of tourbler, torbler, turbler, from Vulgar Latin *turbul?re, from Latin turbula (“disorderly group, a little crowd or people”), diminutive of turba (“stir; crowd”). The noun is from Middle English truble, troble, from Old French troble, from the verb.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tr?b??l; IPA^(key): /?t??b(?)l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?t??b(?)l/, /?t??-/
• Rhymes: -?b?l
• Hyphenation: trou?ble

Noun

trouble (countable and uncountable, plural troubles)

1. A distressing or dangerous situation.

2. A difficulty, problem, condition, or action contributing to such a situation.

3. A violent occurrence or event.

4. Efforts taken or expended, typically beyond the normal required.
   • 1850, William Cullen Bryant, Letters of a Traveller

     She never took the trouble to close them.

   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

     Indeed, by the report of our elders, this nervous preparation for old age is only trouble thrown away.

5. A malfunction.

6. Liability to punishment; conflict with authority.

7. (mining) A fault or interruption in a stratum.
8. (Cockney rhyming slang) Wife. Clipping of trouble and strife.

Usage notes

• Verbs often used with "trouble": make, spell, stir up, ask for, etc.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:difficult situation

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• Appendix:Collocations of do, have, make, and take for uses and meaning of trouble collocated with these words.

Verb

trouble (third-person singular simple present troubles, present participle troubling, simple past and past participle troubled)

1. (transitive, now rare) To disturb, stir up, agitate (a medium, especially water).
2. (transitive) To mentally distress; to cause (someone) to be anxious or perplexed.

   What she said about narcissism is troubling me.
3. (transitive) In weaker sense: to bother or inconvenience.

   I will not trouble you to deliver the letter.

4. (reflexive or intransitive) To take pains to do something.

   I won't trouble to post the letter today; I can do it tomorrow.

5. (intransitive) To worry; to be anxious.
   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.26:

     Why trouble about the future? It is wholly uncertain.

Related terms

• turbid
• turbulent

Translations

Further reading

• trouble in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• trouble in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• -buterol, Boulter, boulter

French

Etymology 1

Deverbal of troubler or from Old French troble.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?ubl/

Noun

trouble m (plural troubles)

1. trouble
2. (medicine) disorder

Derived terms

• trouble de la personnalité
• trouble obsessionnel compulsif

Verb

trouble

1. first-person singular present indicative of troubler
2. third-person singular present indicative of troubler
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of troubler
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of troubler
5. second-person singular imperative of troubler

Etymology 2

From Old French troble, probably from a Vulgar Latin *turbulus (with metathesis), itself perhaps an alteration of Latin turbidus with influence from turbulentus; cf. also turbula. Compare Catalan tèrbol, Romanian tulbure.

Adjective

trouble (plural troubles)

1. (of a liquid) murky, turbid, muddy, thick, clouded, cloudy; not clear

Derived terms

• pêcher en eau trouble

Further reading

• “trouble” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

perplex +? -ity, from Middle French perplexité or post-classical Latin perplexitas ‘entanglement’, from perplexus.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p??pl?ks?ti/
• (US) IPA^(key): /p???pl?ks?di/

Noun

perplexity (countable and uncountable, plural perplexities)

1. The state or quality of being perplexed; puzzled or confused.
2. Something that perplexes.
   • 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Canongate 2006), page 149:

     The Emperor, who was by then a focus of unresolvable perplexities, stood providing a strongly contrary appearance.

3. In information theory, a measurement of how well a probability distribution or model predicts a sample.

Translations