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brawl (brôl)
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n.
1. A noisy quarrel or fight.
2. Slang A loud party.
intr.v. brawled, brawl·ing, brawls
To quarrel or fight noisily.
[Middle English braul, from braullen, to quarrel.]
brawler n.
brawling·ly adv.
Synonyms: brawl, donnybrook, fracas, fray1, free-for-all, melee, scrap2, scrape, scuffle1
These nouns denote a noisy, disorderly, and often violent quarrel or fight: a barroom brawl; a vicious legal donnybrook; a fracas among prison inmates; eager for the fray; a free-for-all in the schoolyard; police plunging into the melee; a scrap between opposing players; a scrape that took place at the mall; a scuffle that broke out in the courtroom.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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