The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Turbulence \Tur"bu*lence\, n. [L. turbulentia: cf. F.
   turbulence.]
   The quality or state of being turbulent; a disturbed state;
   tumult; disorder; agitation. --Shak.
   [1913 Webster]

         The years of . . . warfare and turbulence which ensued.
                                                  --Southey.
   [1913 Webster]

   Syn: Agitation; commotion; tumult; tumultuousness;
        termagance; unruliness; insubordination; rioting.
        [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

turbulence
    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]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

189 Moby Thesaurus words for "turbulence":
   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