tumult
/ˈtjuːmʌlt
/noun
1A loud, confused noise, especially one caused by a large mass of people: a tumult of shouting and screaming broke out...
- The play ends in a tumult of sounds, the woman's screams and the man's pleadings with the doctor to ‘send help immediately’ being drowned by music and the screams of an ambulance siren.
- Hundreds of other families were also separated in the tumult.
Synonyms
din, loud noise, racket, uproar, commotion, ruckus, rumpus, hubbub, pandemonium, babel, bedlam, brouhaha, fracas, furore, melee, frenzy, ado;
shouting, yelling, clamour, clangour;
Scottish & Northern English stramash
informal hullabaloo
British informal row
Law, dated affray
1.1 [mass noun] A state of confusion or disorder: the whole neighbourhood was in a state of fear and tumult his personal tumult ended when he began writing songs...
- The poetry of great minds has grown and been nurtured in the midst of life's mystic tumult and disorder.
- Despite all tumult and turbulence, one after all, had to carry on.
- Public tumults and tragedies gradually recede into the past and become less emotionally fraught for all of us.
Synonyms
turmoil, confusion, disorder, disarray, disturbance, unrest, chaos, turbulence, mayhem, havoc, upheaval, upset, ferment, agitation, trouble;
storms, tempests, maelstroms, convulsions
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French tumulte or Latin tumultus.
truffle from late 16th century:
This word for a type of fungus is probably via Dutch from obsolete French truffle, perhaps based on Latin tubera, the plural of tuber ‘hump, swelling’, also the source of tuber (late 17th century). Use of the word in confectionery dates from the 1920s. The related verb tumere ‘to swell’ is the source of tumult (Late Middle English)