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Trouble vs Woe - What's the difference?

trouble | woe |

As nouns the difference between trouble and woe

is that trouble is a distressful or dangerous situation while woe is grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.

As a verb trouble

is to disturb, stir up, agitate (a medium, especially water).

As an adjective woe is

woeful; sorrowful.

trouble

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A distressful or dangerous situation.
  • A difficulty, problem, condition, or action contributing to such a situation.
  • * (John Milton)
    • Lest the fiend some new trouble raise.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
    • Foul whisperings are abroad; unnatural deeds / Do breed unnatural troubles .
  • A violent occurrence or event.
  • * , chapter=7
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=“I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble . It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. What I won't stand is to have them togs called a livery. […]”}}
  • Efforts taken or expended, typically beyond the normal required.
  • * Bryant
    • She never took the trouble to close them.
  • *1881 , :
  • *:Indeed, by the report of our elders, this nervous preparation for old age is only trouble thrown away.
  • A malfunction.
  • Liability to punishment; conflict with authority.
  • (mining) A fault or interruption in a stratum.

    • Usage notes

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

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * ask for trouble * distrouble * double trouble * engine trouble * get into trouble * in trouble * teething troubles * trouble and strife * troubled * trouble-free * trouble in paradise * troublemaker/trouble maker * troubler * The Troubles * troubleshoot * troubleshooter * troubleshooting * troublesome * trouble spot

    See also

    * for uses and meaning of trouble collocated with these words.

    Verb

    (troubl)
  • To disturb, stir up, agitate (a medium, especially water).
  • * Bible, John v. 4
    • An angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water.
  • * Milton
    • God looking forth will trouble all his host.
  • To mentally distress; to cause (someone) to be anxious or perplexed.
  • * Bible, John xii. 27
    • Now is my soul troubled .
  • * Shakespeare
    • Take the boy to you; he so troubles me / 'Tis past enduring.
  • * John Locke
    • Never trouble yourself about those faults which age will cure.
  • In weaker sense: to bother; to annoy, pester.
    • Question 3 in the test is troubling me.
    I will not trouble you to deliver the letter.
  • To take pains to do something.
  • * 1946 , (Bertrand Russell), History of Western Philosophy , I.26:
    • Why trouble about the future? It is wholly uncertain.

    Related terms

    * turbid * turbulent

    Statistics

    *

    External links

    * * 1000 English basic words ----

    woe

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.
  • * Milton
    • Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe , she took.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • [They] weep each other's woe .
  • A curse; a malediction.
  • * South
    • Can there be a woe or curse in all the stores of vengeance equal to the malignity of such a practice?

    Derived terms

    * in weal or woe * woeful * woe is me

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) woeful; sorrowful
  • * Robert of Brunne
    • His clerk was woe to do that deed.
  • * Chaucer
    • Woe was this knight and sorrowfully he sighed.
  • * Spenser
    • And looking up he waxed wondrous woe .

    Anagrams

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