donnybrook
playSimple Definition of donnybrook
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: a public argument
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: an uncontrolled fight
Full Definition of donnybrook
1 : free-for-all, brawl
2 : a usually public quarrel or dispute
Related to donnybrook
Examples of donnybrook in a sentence
A donnybrook has erupted over the court's decision.
<a dozen people were arrested after the donnybrook at the stadium>
Did You Know?
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.
Origin and Etymology of donnybrook
Donnybrook Fair, annual Irish event known for its brawls
First Known Use: 1852
Rhymes with donnybrook
Beaverbrook, bring to book, buttonhook, cock a snook, comic book, copybook, gerenuk, grappling hook, inglenook, in one's book, Leeuwenhoek, off the hook, overbook, overlook, picture book, pocketbook, pressure-cook, pruning hook, Sandy Hook, service book, statute book, storybook, talking book, tenterhook, Volapük
Donnybrook
playDefinition of Donnybrook
city E Ireland in Leinster, SE suburb of Dublin
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