/bɹɔːl/, /bɹɔl/, /bɹɑl/
OriginThe 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.
- A disorderly argument or fight, usually with a large number of people involved.
“Three Ciuell brawles bred of an airie word, / By the old Capulet and Mountague, / Haue thrice diſturbd the quiet of our ſtreets.”
“The complaint charged that the defendants, on, etc., at, etc., "in a certain public place, to wit, in a certain school-house in which a singing-school was then and there being held, did make a great b”
“It has been reported that an entertainment took place not long ago in a certain "hot spot" in New York City, and it has been charged that members of the Federal Communications Commission were present;”
- obsoleteA type of dance move or step.
- intransitiveTo engage in a brawl; to fight or quarrel.
“I doe the wrong, and firſt began to braule / The ſecret miſchiefes that I ſet abroach, / I lay vnto the grieuous charge of others: [...]” — I do the wrong, and am the first to begin to quarrel. / The secret mischiefs that I set afoot, / I blame on others: …
“Theſe are the deep and profound Myſteries of Artificial Logick, invented with ſo much care by theſe fallacious Doctors, [...] Theſe are the Nets, and theſe are the Hounds with which they hunt the Trut”
“As long as they [Xanthippe and Myrto, Socrates' wives] diſagreed, they were continually ſcolding, brawling, or fighting, with each other; and whenever they agreed, they both joined in brawling [verb s”
- intransitiveTo create a disturbance; to complain loudly.
“Say beggar, why brawlest þou? go boune þe to þe barre.”
“She [the son's wife] is one that is euermore full of ſtryfe / And of all Scolders beareth the Bell. / When ſhe ſpeaketh beſt, ſhe brawleth her tonge / When ſhe is ſtyll ſhe fyghteth apace: / She is an”
“How now ſir Iohn, what are you brawling here? / Doth this become your place, your time, and buſineſſe?” — Hello, what's this, Sir John [Falstaff], what, are you creating a disturbance here? / Is this becoming of a person of your position, your age, and duties?
- intransitiveEspecially of a rapid stream running over stones: to make a loud, confused noise.
“To day my Lord of Amiens, and my ſelfe, / Did ſteale behinde him as he lay along / Vnder an oake, whoſe anticke roote peepes out / Vpon the brooke that brawles along this wood, [...]”
“―When low-hung clouds each ſtar of ſummer hide, / And fireleſs are the valleys far and wide, / Where the brook brawls along the painful road, / Dark with bat haunted aſhes ſtretching broad, [...]”
“What seek we here / Amid this waste where desolation scowls, / And the red torrent, brawling down the linn, / Sings everlasting discord?”
- transitiveTo pour abuse on; to scold.
- intransitive, obsoleteTo move to and fro, to quiver, to shake.
Formsbrawls(plural) · brawls(present, singular, third-person) · brawling(participle, present) · brawled(participle, past) · brawled(past)