brawl
Meanings
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
- 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.
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
affray, altercation, argument, argy-bargy, barney, bash, bawl out, blue, bobbery, brawl, clash, conflict, controversy, debate, difference, ding-dong, disagreement, discordance, disharmony, disputation, dispute, dissonance, disunion, do, dust-up, dustup, face-off, falling out, feud, fight, flite, fracas, free-for-all, hassle, kerfuffle, quarrel, quibble, row, ruckus, scuffle, set to, set-to, spat, squabble, stoush, tangle, threap, tiff, vibrate, waver, wrangle
Scrabble Score: 10
brawl is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordbrawl is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
brawl is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary