Other forms: tribulations
Tribulation is a period of great trouble and suffering. Trials and tribulations, years of tribulation, endure the tribulation.
It has a religious ring and lives mostly in the phrase trials and tribulations. The Latin is a threshing board, so the picture is of being crushed under a weight that separates the grain.
1nountribulationA period of great trouble and suffering.
“The family came through a decade of tribulation without breaking apart.”
tribulation is a hardship.
Latin tribulare, to press or thresh, comes from tribulum, the board dragged over grain to crush it.
Proto-Indo-European
*terh₁-
Latin
tribulare — to press, probably also thresh out grain
Old French
tribulacion
Middle English
tribulation
English, today
tribulation
Built from
From Middle English tribulation, from Old French tribulacion, from tribulatio, from Latin tribulare (“to press, probably also thresh out grain”), from tribulum (“a sledge consisting of a wooden block studded with sharp pieces of flint or with iron teeth, used for threshing grain”), from terere (“to rub”); see trite.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA