Meaning of troubled waters | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Difficulties, chaos, tribulations, or other confusing and problematic aspects of a situation.
   figuratively, plural, plural-only
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see troubled, water.; water that is stirred up with high waves, chaotic currents, etc., and therefore difficult to navigate.
   plural, plural-only

Examples

“Not only were the troubled waters in the Middle East, they had spilled over into Australia.”

“The tide that was rushing in to pull them both out to troubled waters was stopped at the edge of the shore by the ringing of the telephone.”

“I will observe the 'troubled waters' of such a programme and try to reveal how the actors involved steer the course of the research process.”

“Indeed, the research has required experimental tactics and an ability to steer through troubled waters of messy ethnographic research – feeling, living and surviving the resulting productive 'creative chaos' of my own constitution, and of my mode of working and thinking (sometimes a blessing, at other times an excruciating curse) – which, now that I come to think of it, may be a "birth gift" from my mother and father with their blend of a perfectionist sense for structured analytic order, versus the fragility of artistic freedom-seeking creativity and improvisation, and an addition of stubbornness on my part.”

“The rain falling in torrents– the rolling waves, commingling their heavy roar with the pealing claps of thunder– the quiverying lighning, flashing in burnished brighness across the mighty deep, exposing its troubled waters to full view – the laboring ship, rolling from side to side, creaking in every plank as if going to pieces– the winds sweeping, in their fury, from wave to wave– all conspire to fill the mind with wonder, awe, and astonishment.”

“In the Perseus and Andromeda series we go again in the Dragon country, through troubled waters, where the waves foam round picturesque rock on which we do not fear to slip, wearing Mercury's sandals.”

“All around the ship, troubled waters bumped against it in warning.”

CEFR level