Link Centre Dictionary

brawl

UK/bɹɔːl/ US/bɹoːl/ fairly common

noun

1.

an uproarious party

Synonyms
2.

a noisy fight in a crowd

Synonyms

verb

1.

to quarrel noisily, angrily or disruptively

  • “The bar keeper threw them out, but they continued to wrangle on down the street”
Synonyms

Origin

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.

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.