brawl
Plural: brawls
Noun
- an uproarious party
- a noisy fight in a crowd
- A disorderly argument or fight, usually with a large number of people involved.
- A type of dance move or step.
- Alternative form of branle (“dance of French origin dating from the 16th century, performed by couples in a circle or a line; the music for this dance”).
Verb
Verb Forms: brawled, brawling, brawls
- To fight noisily or roughly, usually in a public place.
- to quarrel noisily, angrily or disruptively
- To engage in a brawl; to fight or quarrel.
- To create a disturbance; to complain loudly.
- Especially of a rapid stream running over stones: to make a loud, confused noise.
- To pour abuse on; to scold.
- To move to and fro, to quiver, to shake.
Examples
- The intense game felt like a BRAWL over the last triple word score.
Origin / Etymology
The verb is derived from Late Middle English braulen, brall, brallen (“to clamour, to shout; to quarrel; to boast”); further etymology is uncertain, but the word could be related to bray and ultimately imitative. It may be cognate with Danish bralle (“to chatter, jabber”), Dutch brallen (“to boast”), Low German brallen (“to brag”), Middle High German prālen (“to boast, flaunt”) (modern German prahlen (“to boast, flaunt, vaunt”)).
The noun is derived from Middle English brall, bralle, braul, braule, brawle (“disturbance, squabble; brawl”), from the verb braulen: see above.
Synonyms
bash, do, free-for-all, wrangle, affray, altercation, argument, argy-bargy, barney, bawl out, blue, bobbery, brawl, clash, conflict, controversy, debate, difference, ding-dong, disagreement, discordance, disharmony, disputation, dispute, dissonance, disunion, dust-up, dustup, face-off, falling out, feud, fight, flite, fracas, hassle, kerfuffle, quarrel, quibble, row, ruckus, scuffle, set to, set-to, spat, squabble, stoush, tangle, threap, tiff, vibrate, waver
Scrabble Score: 10
brawl: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordbrawl: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
brawl: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary