These words refer to extreme agitation, either of external physical forces or of internal emotional states. Turbulent , often applied to wind and water, suggests troubled, tumbling, erratic, chaotic or confused activity or a whirl of uncontrolled emotion: turbulent anxieties that drove her to suicide; the turbulent airflow round a badly streamlined aircraft; a turbulent mob of jostling, jeering workers. As in the last example, the physical and emotional applications of the word may often coalesce.

Violent and wild are the most general of these words. Violent stresses destructive or uncontrolled physical force: a violent hurricane. In reference to human action, it stresses extreme agitation and often harmful or vicious behaviour: the violent manner in which he pounded the podium with his fist; trying to keep the turbulent crowd from becoming violent ; a violent person capable of killing anyone who got in his way. Wild suggests an untamed state of nature: the Burke and Wills expedition over wild, uncharted plains and desert. Used of a person, the word can suggest uncontrolled, uncivilized behaviour: cursing and stamping about like a wild man. It can suggest, also, derangement or immorality: a woman who went wild and stabbed her three children; staggering from the lifeboat with wild eyes; a wild party.

Stormy and tempestuous can refer to turbulent weather and also to human emotion. In either case, tempestuous suggests greater force or intensity: stormy weather that had run its course by morning; tempestuous barrages of wind and rain that hammered the island for three days without let-up. Used of emotions, stormy indicates great agitation, but there is no necessary implication of potential harm or of an unpleasant outcome: stormy lovers¡¯ quarrels that end in love-making. In this context, tempestuous suggests forceful or disordered emotional intensity, but, like stormy , no necessarily harmful or lasting result: a tempestuous , six-month love-affair. The word can suggest the running of a range of emotions at their highest pitch; consequently, it is sometimes used in descriptions of art, particularly works from the romantic era: a tempestuous piano concerto. Blustering is related to stormy and tempestuous in that it can refer to weather, but by contrast it suggests erratic stop-and-start gusts of wind or rain. As applied to emotions, the word has a drastically different set of connotations, usually suggesting hasty, rash, angry outbursts of uncontrolled speech or action: blustering about the office and breaking out in fits of violent fury that he directed at his amazed secretary.

Both riotous and tumultuous can apply to turbulent or violent groups of people. In this use, tumultuous is like turbulent, while riotous is even more forceful than violent . Tumultuous stresses noise, mass crowding and erratic activity, but does not necessarily suggest potential danger or destructiveness; the word can, in fact, indicate the opposite: tumultuous crowds that gathered to hail the astronauts; tumultuous applause for her performance. A riotous crowd, by contrast, is by implication one verging on angry mob action: an orderly meeting that became riotous as more and more workers cried out in favour of striking immediately. Riotous can refer to any sort of bewildering array or profusion: a field riotous with colourful flowers. It is less likely to describe emotions than tumultuous . In this context, the latter suggests an extreme upheaval accompanied by surges of contradictory feelings during which the rational mind cannot sort out or control the developing confusion: a tumultuous state of both anger and fear.