Etymology Unknown. First appears c. 1526. Perhaps from Old French tremouille (“the hopper of a mill”).
1
Usually A state of great disorder or uncertainty.
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:
2
Usually Harassing 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]:
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:
Etymology Unknown. First appears c. 1526. Perhaps from Old French tremouille (“the hopper of a mill”).
1
Obsolete To be disquieted or confused; to be in commotion.
some notable sophister lies sweating and turmoiling under the inevitable and merciless delimmas of Socrates1642 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:
2
Obsolete To 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: