brawling

verb

present participle of brawl
as in bickering
to express different opinions about something often angrily the Wilsons were always loudly brawling, and the neighbors were always shutting their windows

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of brawling What turns him on is cryptic babes, brawling men and stagy fables of lust, rivalry and possession. — Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 23 July 2026 English soccer fans have earned a reputation for violent hooliganism, hurling plastic chairs and brawling their way across the piazzas and boulevards of Europe. — Alexander Smith, NBC news, 3 July 2026 And in an age of boorish, brawling Little League Parents®, perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned from our new friends in the horn hats. — Anthony Crupi, Sportico.com, 26 June 2026 Judo doesn’t look like brawling. — Bhumika Tharoor, The Atlantic, 9 June 2026 Despite the ferocious domestic rivalries, the Tartan Army is considered among the world’s friendliest football fans, known for singing and mingling instead of brawling (even if only while their national team is playing). — Laura Dannen Redman, Condé Nast Traveler, 28 May 2026 This game is the ultimate in brawling adventure. — Bestreviews, Mercury News, 23 Apr. 2026 And in 2025, the Bearista cup caused a craze, with customers lining up overnight and, in some cases, brawling over it. — Nick El Hajj, USA Today, 15 Apr. 2026 Republicans have a rare, if slim, shot at winning the governor’s mansion in deep blue California — but risk blowing it if they’re divided and brawling when voters receive their ballots in early May. — Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle, 11 Apr. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for brawling
  1. bickering
  2. fighting
  3. arguing
  4. quarreling
Verb
  • Establishment figures such as Jeffries and the party’s 2028 presidential candidates will need to grasp that the relationship between the DSA and the Democratic Party is not one of occasionally bickering siblings, but of parasite and host.
    — James Kirchick, The Atlantic, 21 July 2026
  • Several weeks back, Clark and White were caught bickering during a timeout huddle against the expansion Portland Fire.
    — Candace Buckner, New York Times, 27 June 2026
Definition of bickering
Verb
  • Residents are fighting a proposal to build 192 apartments in seven buildings on a vacant slope near the Oceanside-Vista border just south of state Route 78.
    — Phil Diehl, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 July 2026
  • That video cast Perry as a solider fighting battle in wartime scenes.
    — Marina Watts, Entertainment Weekly, 25 July 2026
Definition of fighting
Verb
  • On July 28, Mark Zuckerberg published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that superintelligence should be distributed as widely as possible and that concentrating it in a handful of institutions is the greatest risk AI poses to humanity.
    — Anisha Sircar, Forbes.com, 30 July 2026
  • That was, frankly, ridiculous, and our coverage said as much, arguing that this deep dive into one of Hollywood’s most notorious genre disasters deserved a much wider release.
    — Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 30 July 2026
Definition of arguing
Verb
  • Now might not seem the moment for Democrats to be quarrelling, but many of them believe that the only way to build the Party back up is to remake it.
    — Amy Davidson Sorkin, New Yorker, 17 May 2026
  • The lack of money has, at times, led to quarrelling between the services - most notably pitting the navy against the army and the Royal Air Force.
    — Ian King, CNBC, 22 Apr. 2026
Definition of quarreling

Browse Nearby Words

brawlers
brawling
brawls
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Cite this Entry

“Brawling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/brawling. Accessed 31 Jul. 2026.

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Nglish: Translation of brawling for Spanish Speakers

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