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The Donnybrook Fair was an annual event held in Donnybrook-then a suburb of Dublin, Ireland-from the 13th to the 19th centuries. The fair was legendary for the vast quantities of liquor consumed there, for the number of hasty marriages performed during the week following it, and, most of all, for the frequent brawls that erupted throughout it. Eventually, the fair's reputation for tumult was its undoing. From the 1790s on there were campaigns against the drunken brawl the fair had become. The event was abolished in 1855, but not before its name had become a generic term for a free-for-all.
Examples of donnybrook in a Sentence
Kerry Burke,
New York Daily News,
25 Apr. 2026
After Wedgewood smothered a Trevor Moore wrister on a Kings 2-on-1, a full-scale donnybrook exploded near the Colorado net.
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Sean Keeler,
Denver Post,
22 Apr. 2026
The measurement donnybrook is the latest fissure between Nielsen and its media client base.
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Brian Steinberg,
Variety,
24 Mar. 2026
Paramedics were called after several players in the scrum were bloodied in the donnybrook.
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Charles Selle,
Chicago Tribune,
23 Feb. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Donnybrook.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/donnybrook. Accessed 28 Jun. 2026.
Copy CitationGeographical Definition
Donnybrook
geographical name
Note: Donnybrook is a southeastern suburb of Dublin.
