Adjacent Words

Turbulence definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

TUR'BULENCE
TUR'BULENCY, n. [See Turbulent.] A disturbed state; tumult; confusion; as the turbulence of the times; turbulence in political affairs.
1. Disorder or tumult of the passions; as turbulence of mind.
2. Agitation; tumultuousness; as turbulence of blood.
3. Disposition to resist authority; insubordination; as the turbulence of subjects.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: unstable flow of a liquid or gas [syn: turbulence, turbulency]
2: instability in the atmosphere
3: a state of violent disturbance and disorder (as in politics or social conditions generally); "the industrial revolution was a period of great turbulence" [syn: turbulence, upheaval, Sturm und Drang]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1595 the quality or state of being turbulent: as a. great commotion or agitation <emotional turbulence> b. irregular atmospheric motion especially when characterized by up-and-down currents c. departure in a fluid from a smooth flow

NOAA Weather Glossary

Disrupted flow in the atmosphere that produces gusts and eddies.  At times this can be violent and can cause the up and down movement of a plane.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 an irregularly fluctuating flow of air or fluid. 2 Meteorol. stormy conditions as a result of atmospheric disturbance. 3 a disturbance, commotion, or tumult.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Turbulence Tur"bu*lence, n. [L. turbulentia: cf. F. turbulebce.] The quality or state of being turbulent; a disturbed state; tumult; disorder; agitation. --Shak. The years of . . . warfare and turbulence which ensued. --Southey. Syn: Agitation; commotion; tumult; tumultuousness; termagance; unruliness; insubordination; rioting.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. Turbulence is a state of confusion and disorganized change. The 1960s and early 1970s were a time of change and turbulence. 2. Turbulence is violent and uneven movement within a particular area of air, liquid, or gas. His plane encountered severe turbulence and winds of nearly two-hundred miles an hour.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Tumult, uproar, disturbance, turmoil, commotion, disorder, confusion, agitation, tumultuousness, unruliness. 2. Riot, sedition, mutiny, insurrection, rebellion, insubordination.

Moby Thesaurus

CAT, ado, aerospace, aerosphere, agitation, air flow, air hole, air pocket, airspace, asperity, babel, bluster, bobbery, boil, boiling, brawl, broil, brouhaha, bump, bumpiness, burble, bustle, cacophony, ceiling, chaos, choppiness, churn, commotion, confusion, conturbation, cragginess, crosswind, derangement, din, disarrangement, disarray, disarticulation, discomfiture, discomposure, disconcertedness, disharmony, dishevelment, disintegration, disjunction, disorder, disorderliness, disorganization, disproportion, disquiet, disquietude, disruption, disturbance, dither, ebullience, ebullition, eddy, effervescence, embroilment, empty space, entropy, excitement, fanaticism, favorable wind, feery-fary, ferment, fermentation, fever, feverishness, fidgets, fight, flap, flow, flurry, fluster, flutteration, fog, foment, fomentation, foofaraw, fracas, frenzy, front, fume, furor, furore, fury, fuss, granulation, haphazardness, harshness, head wind, high-pressure area, hispidity, hole, hubbub, hurly-burly, hurry, hurry-scurry, incoherence, indiscriminateness, inequality, inharmonious harmony, inquietude, ionosphere, irregularity, jaggedness, jetstream, jitters, joltiness, jumpiness, lather, low-pressure area, maelstrom, malaise, moil, most admired disorder, nerviness, nervosity, nervousness, nonsymmetry, nonuniformity, overcast, pandemonium, passion, pell-mell, perturbation, pocket, pother, promiscuity, promiscuousness, racket, rage, raggedness, randomness, restlessness, roil, rough air, roughness, rout, row, ruckus, ruffle, ruggedness, rugosity, rumpus, scraggliness, seethe, seething, soup, space, stew, stir, storminess, stratosphere, substratosphere, swirl, swirling, tail wind, tempestuousness, to-do, tooth, trepidation, trepidity, tropopause, troposphere, trough, tumult, tumultuation, tumultuousness, turbidity, turmoil, twitter, unease, unevenness, unrest, unruliness, unsmoothness, unsymmetry, ununiformity, uproar, upset, visibility, visibility zero, vortex, whirl, wildness, yeastiness, zeal, zealousness