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Brawl   Listen
noun
Brawl  n.  A noisy quarrel; loud, angry contention; a wrangle; a tumult; as, a drunken brawl. "His sports were hindered by the brawls."
Synonyms: Noise; quarrel; uproar; row; tumult.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Brawl" Quotes from Famous Books



... of a red-moustached gentleman in blue who wrangled in rapid French with a black-moustached gentleman in yellow, while a snow-white commere and a compere in a mauve flannel suit looked on at the brawl. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... interrupted with appropriate questions when it threatens to become exhausting. Help against too much talk can be found in one direction. But it must be made use of before the evil begins, and is in any event of use only in the description of a long chain of events,—e. g., a great brawl. There, if one has been put in complete possession of the whole truth, through one or more witnesses, the next witness may be told: "Begin where X entered the room.'' If that is not done, one may be compelled to hear all ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. He does not refute opponents, but curses enemies. Yet his rage, even when most delirious, is always a Miltonic rage; it is grand, sublime, terrible! Mingled with the scurrilities of the theological brawl are passages of the noblest English ever written. Hartley Coleridge explains the dulness of the wit-combats in Shakspeare and Jonson, on the ground that repartee is the accomplishment of lighter thinkers and a less ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... substituted mind for hands in the contest and so fell in with his notion that fighting is quite right if only the cause is a worthy one. He is quick to see the distinction and so makes the substitution with alacrity and with no loss of self-respect. Ever after he disdains the vulgar brawl and does not lose the fighting instinct. Thus the vitalized teacher by knowing how to make substitutions wins for society a valiant champion. If we multiply this example, we shall readily see how such a teacher-politician deserves the distinction of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... says a soldier who fought under Julian. (Amm. Marcel. xv. 12. 1). "They are white, golden-haired, terrible in the fierceness of their eyes, greedy of quarrels, bragging and insolent. A band of strangers could not resist one of them in a brawl, assisted by his strong blue-eyed wife, especially when she begins, gnashing her teeth, her neck swollen, brandishing her vast and snowy arms, and kicking with her heels at the same time, to deliver her fisticuffs, like bolts from the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... effaced. Then again the flag of his pride would be raised aloft so that he and all the people could see, and the old hard look would once more settle in his face, the lips straighten and the thin fingers tighten. No—NO! No assassins for him—no vulgar brawlers—and it was at best a vulgar brawl—and this too within the confines of Moorlands, where, for five generations, only ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... faith, this is none of the worst neither, for if he brawl and be beaten for it, it will in time make him shun it: For what brings man or child more to virtue than correction? What reigns over ...
— The London Prodigal • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... some mistake. It cannot be said Charles Pimontel was murdered; does it follow because the unrecognized body of some hapless victim of a street brawl has been washed on the beach that it must necessarily be the body of the captain? Do you not think his murderers would pay dearly for this attack on him? Have any witnesses come forward to swear to his assassination? I will ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... talk, And sixty miles a day can walk; Drink at a draught a pint of rum, And then be neither sick nor dumb; Can tune a song, and make a verse, And deeds of northern kings rehearse; Who never will forsake his friend, While he his bony fist can bend; And, though averse to brawl and strife, Will fight a Dutchman with a knife, O that is just the lad for me, And ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... like manner, in squeek, squeak, squeal, squall, brawl, wraul, yaul, spaul, screek, shriek, shrill, sharp, shrivel, wrinkle, crack, crash, clash, gnash, plash, crush, hush, hisse, fisse, whist, soft, jar, hurl, curl, whirl, buz, bustle, spindle, dwindle, twine, twist, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... cheer up! my dear Frank," said the young poet, feigning a confidence of hope which his heart belied. "Whitaker may still recover; he is too gallant a fellow to be lost to us in a drunken brawl; and even if the worst should happen, it must still keep you from despair to reflect that you were forced into this rencontre, and that it was an unhappy accident, resulting from his own violence and not your intention, which deprived him of his life." ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... a wound gained in an honourable contest with the enemy than one received in a night brawl, and I would rather see you commanding your men in action than reeling with other drunkards in search of a ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... next parliament Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester; And if thou be not then created York, I will not live to be accounted Warwick. Meantime, in signal of my love to thee, Against proud Somerset and William Pole, Will I upon thy party wear this rose: And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day, Grown to this faction in the Temple-garden, Shall send between the red rose and the white A thousand souls to ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... Emperor's smaller palaces was built amid shady gardens that ran down to the water's edge. Gilbert was carried along by the stream of hurrying men, who, seeing that he was a stranger and alone, jostled him with little ceremony. He had too much wit and perhaps too much self-respect, to rouse a street brawl on his own behalf, and when any one ran against him with unnecessary roughness he contented himself with stiffening his back and holding his own in passive resistance. He had reached his full strength and was a match for many little Greeks, yet the annoyance was distasteful ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... with their baskets full and their faces happy, Axel Lohm was riding thoughtfully past, having just settled an unpleasant business at Kleinwalde. Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours; there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman, and a man had been stabbed. Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed over to the Stralsund authorities. His wife, a girl of twenty, was ill, and she and her three small ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... indifferently. She had seen the young miner on several occasions; once she had been rendered an invaluable service when he rescued her from a brawl in which a dozen toughs had ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... Chloris, lightly. And at Eldris's distress—"Fear not, foolish! Should not all slaves stand together? Body of Bacchus! Did they do so, there would shortly be no slaves! But that is as it must be. As for Nicodemus, know you what place his wine-shop is? A drinking den where violent men gather to brawl and gamble. No fit one, truly, for a maid! Rather, stay you here, and when this unloved comrade of yours arrives, why, I'll hear of ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... the blow received. With the effect of a schoolmaster entering the play-room of his pupils was that blow administered. Women pulled down their sleeves and laid prim hands against their ruffled side locks. Men looked at their watches. There was nothing of the effect of a brawl about it; it was purely the still panic produced by the sound of the ax of the fly cop, Conscience hammering at the gambling-house ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... the Avocat's upon the arm of the second. The two women were glaring eye to eye, having just finished as fine a torrent of abuse of each other and of Kilquhanity as can be imagined. Kilquhanity himself, with the sorrow of death upon him, though he knew it not, had listened to the brawl, his chickens come home to roost at last. The first Mrs. Kilquhanity had sworn, with an oath that took no account of the Cure's presence, that not a stick nor a stone nor a rag nor a penny should that Irish slattern ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Fanny Merton, first introduced to Brookshire by Brookshire's favorite, Diana Mallory, was constantly to be seen in the black sheep's company. They had been observed together, both in London and the country—at race-meetings and theatres; and a brawl in the Dunscombe refreshment-room, late at night, in which Birch had been involved, brought out the scandalous fact that Miss Merton was in his company. Birch was certainly not sober, and it was said by the police ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the one hand, we see the sinister figure of Henry IV of Germany, on the other we find the austere but noble monk Hildebrand, who became Pope St. Gregory VII. We hear the clash of swords drawn in private brawl and vendetta, but see them put back into the scabbard at the sound of the church bells that announce the beginning of the "Truce of God." The tale opens beneath the arches of a Suabian forest, with Gilbert de Hers and Henry de Stramen facing each ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... indoors and out of doors. She weaned him from the embittering brawl of politics, and warded away the sourness and despair, which, at one time, seriously threatened to possess him. In the "Prelude," he ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... he had plumbed its hollowness and learnt the full measure of its vanity. Already he shunned the company and diversions of his fellow pages, though he was ever ready to serve them. A prentice lad's homely brawl set him shivering; a woman's jest painted his cheeks 'til they rivalled a young maid's at her first wooing. He plucked aside his skirts and walked in judgment; only wherever mountebank or juggler held the crowd enthralled, there Hilarius, half-ashamed, ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... got mad and left the ambulance service flat, getting into some sort of brawl with an adjutant general or something through wanting to take a mere detail out of his hands that he felt should stay right where it was, he being one of these offensive martinets and a stickler for red tape, and swollen with petty power. So ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... o'er the foam-crested brine, And he heeds not the billowy brawl, For he yearns to behold gentle Swanwhite, the maid Who ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith

... sick vertigo here Preacheth of temperance, no sermon better. These black thoughts, and dull melancholy, That stick like burrs to the brain, will they ne'er leave me? Some men are full of choler, when they are drunk; Some brawl of matter foreign to themselves; And some, the most resolved fools of all, Have told their dearest secrets in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... are adherents of each of the four French parties—Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans—in this little mountain-town; and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for business purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain Poland. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-point; every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. This was not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... delight, he passed in without observation. As if on purpose, at the very same moment a load of hay was going in, and it completely screened him. On the other side of the load, a dispute or brawl was evidently taking place, and he gained the old woman's staircase in a second. Recovering his breath and pressing his hand to his beating heart, he commenced the ascent, though first feeling for the hatchet and arranging it. Every minute he stopped to listen. The stairs were quite deserted, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... relates how, at a tavern revel, Ralegh quieted a noisy fellow, named Charles Chester. He sealed up his mouth by knotting together the beard and moustache. It is on record that in the February of 1580 he was in trouble for a brawl with Sir Thomas Perrot, who afterwards married the sister of Lord Essex, Lady Dorothy Devereux. Ralegh and Perrot were committed by the Council to the Fleet for six days. The affray is not creditable; but it indicates that Ralegh associated ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... sometimes fear that we have committed the unpardonable sin. But there is one sure way of knowing whether a person has committed it or not. I once knew a man who in a drunken brawl had killed another. He was convicted of manslaughter, served his term in prison, then went back to his farm and worked hard and well for ten years. One spring that former crime began to weigh on his mind. He brooded on it and finally became convinced that he had committed the sin ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... Bottlesby, and that Judge McGullet and Captain McWriggler were there to see fair play. If you are both very desirous to have your names figuring in the papers as participants in such a disgraceful brawl, you had better retire to some other quarters, as I am determined it shall not take place in my establishment, if I can ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... I hesitated, for I had no desire to become involved in a drunken brawl, again came the shrill scream: ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... the mountains of Tennessee was seated in the doorway of the cabin, busily eating some pig's feet. A neighbor hurried up to tell of how her husband had become engaged in a saloon brawl and had been shot to death. The widow continued munching on a pig's foot in silence while she listened to the harrowing news. As the narrator paused, she spoke thickly from her ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... abruptly, and cocking his ears at the well-known sound of clashing steel. His companion, accustomed to such occurrences, replied, with an air of indifference, that it was merely some street brawl. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... boyish thought was half divided between the drunken quarrel and the poor old fiddler, all hunched together on the ground and sobbing dry-eyed in a kind of ecstasy of fear and horror. I heard afterwards that he had a son knifed to his death in a seaman's brawl, and never got over it. As for the Finn, they took him home and kept it dark, and he recovered, and may be living yet for all I know to the contrary, and a perfect pattern ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... and following like a dog. But he wasn't thinking of Miriam Burrell or of Garry Devereau, while he waited for Caleb and Dexter Allison to come up with him. He was wondering about Archie Wickersham—the Honorable Archie—thinking about that funny brawl of years before, which had not been so ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... greed of Greek and Jewish usurers was so largely responsible. The results perhaps surpassed the hopes of the Egyptian nationalists. Moslem fanaticism suddenly flashed into flame. On the nth of June a street brawl between a Moslem and a Maltese led to a fierce rising. The "true believers" attacked the houses of the Europeans, secured a great quantity of loot, and killed about fifty of them, including men from ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... effective. But imagine a speaker taking that kind of position to discourse on the development of road-making machinery. If you have a fiery, aggressive message, and will let yourself go, nature will naturally pull your weight to your forward foot. A man in a hot political argument or a street brawl never has to stop to think upon which foot he should throw his weight. You may sometimes place your weight on your back foot if you have a restful and calm message—but don't worry about it: just stand like a man who genuinely ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... if you please. You shall commit what folly you like in respect to the business in hand, but I have no time or taste for a drunken brawl. You may call upon me in the morning. You will forgive me if I suggest that you are not quite fit for business at present. I have the honour to bid you ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... clean of rust and ready for instant use. Some wore tarnished, sea-stained finery looted from hapless prizes, a brocaded waistcoat, a pair of tasseled jack-boots, a plumed hat, a ruffled cape. The heads of several were bound around with knotted kerchiefs on which dark stains showed,—marks of a brawl aboard the brig or a fight with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... itself, lion-like, over the masses of rocks—its tawny mane upheaved to the daylight—and then fell, crashing and plunging, into a mighty chasm, the birchwoods around reverberating with its angry roar. Far away is the lonely sea. This friendly river may laugh or brawl as it will, but there is peace for it at last; its varying voices must eventually disappear in the dull, slow tumult of the distant world. And yet it seemed to him to complain as it went by—to appeal to him; ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... smile Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried For vengeance! Rouse ye, Romans! Rouse ye, slaves! Have ye brave sons?—Look in the next fierce brawl To see them die! Have ye fair daughters?—Look To see them live, torn from your arms, distained. Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice, Be answered by the lash! Yet this is Rome, That sat on her seven hills, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... mistake. My father should have searched out this young bully and effectually quieted him. Fright is a most beneficial thing for bullies, but a sadly harmful one for a little boy. How fervently I vowed to "lick" that Tom Reddiford, if I ever grew half as big as he! Very likely he has died in a brawl or a poor-house by this time. But his outrages burnt into my mind scars so deep that they are part of its structure. I will pay him off yet, if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... better you should do that in private. You have no right to brawl in the streets, even though your ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis

... of Weir is rushing down, Foaming and furious, muddy and brown, From the heights where the laughing Naeiads dwell, And cascades leap from the craggy fell, Where the mountain streamlets brattle and brawl, 'Midst the mountain maidens' echoing call, Through pools where the water-kelpies wait For the rider who dares the roaring spate. Rain-fed, proud, turgid, and swollen, Now foaming wild, now sombre and sullen; Dragging the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... Fit consummation of an earthly race 680 Begun in folly, ended in disgrace, While none but menials o'er the bed of death, Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath; Traduced by liars, and forgot by all, The mangled victim of a drunken brawl, To live like CLODIUS, [102] ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... stocks, And stretch it more unmercifully Than HELMONT, MONTAIGN, WHITE, or TULLY, So th' ancient Stoicks, in their porch, 15 With fierce dispute maintain'd their church; Beat out their brains in fight and study, To prove that Virtue is a Body; That Bonum is an Animal, Made good with stout polemic brawl; 20 in which some hundreds on the place Were slain outright; and many a face Retrench'd of nose, and eyes, and beard, To maintain what their sect averr'd; All which the Knight and Squire, in wrath, 25 Had like t' have suffered for their faith, Each striving ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... buy it. Thangbrand loved money more than ornament, and he sold the shield to the king for a very large sum. Finding himself suddenly rich, the priest went off to enjoy himself. He fell into a drunken brawl with a certain viking, who challenged him to fight. A desperate duel was fought and the viking was killed. Great ill feeling was aroused against Thangbrand by this unpriestly incident, and he went back full of penitence to ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... not my intention," Tallente remarked thoughtfully, "to kill the young man. A brawl in front of the windows was impossible, so I took him with me to the lookout. I suppose he was tactless and I lost my temper. I struck him on the chin and he went backwards, through that piece of rotten paling, ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... leads down to the river. Even at this distance you hear the shallow brawl of water on the stones. A path goes off across a hill, with trees beckoning at the top. There is a wind above and a wider sweep of clouds. Surely, from the crest of the hill the whole county will ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... of Ojeda was received with acclamations of transport by some of the rebels; others made objections. Quarrels arose: a ruffianly scene of violence and brawl ensued, in which several were killed and wounded on both sides; but the party for the expedition ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... head in protest. Except the exhortation, the ceremony was practically finished. A policeman appeared out of somewhere and seemed to be expostulating with the intruder. Just for a minute it looked as if there was going to be an open brawl. ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... it true," said Annie Winnie, "sin ye ken sae muckle about it, that the picture of auld Sir Malise Ravenswood came down on the ha' floor, and led out the brawl before them a'?" ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... At difference? fie! Is this a time for quarrels? Thieves and rogues Fall out and brawl: should men of your high calling, Men, separated by the choice of Providence From the gross heap of mankind, and set here In this assembly, as in one great jewel, T' adorn the bravest purpose it e'er smiled on; Should you, like boys, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway

... perpetual hints serving not a little to encourage the notion) that Miss Amory was tolerably well disposed to renew the little flirtation which had been carried on in the early days of both of them, by the banks of the rural Brawl. But he was little disposed to marriage, he said, at that moment, and, adopting some of his uncle's worldly tone, spoke rather contemptuously of the institution, and in ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... writ was issued and duly served upon the uncompromising Snooks. Now a writ is not a matter to grin at and to treat with contempt or levity. Mr. Snooks could not return that document to Mr. Prigg, so he had to consider. And first he consulted his wife: this consultation led to a domestic brawl and then to his kicking one of his horses in the stomach. Then he threw a shovel at his dog, and next the thought occurred to him that he had better go and see Mr. Locust. This gentleman was a solicitor who practised ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... he, "you have attained your end and have certainly chosen a particularly delicate moment for your intrusion. I would not brawl in the presence of death, but I can assure you that if I were a younger man your monstrous conduct would ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "How can people brawl when they have a certain income of thirty thousand livres? Young people have bad manners, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... By this time the brawl—for such it was proving to be—had begun to attract public notice, and those that walked halted to watch the altercation between the big man and the slim youth. I caught a glimpse of Monna Vittoria beneath the arcade, and saw amusement on her face and ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... "verrie ingenious" and "cunning in that craft." Perhaps, however, to make the royal favour for a mere craftsman more respectable, according to the notions of the time, it is added in a popular story that the favourite was a man of great strength and stature, whose prowess in some brawl attracted the admiration of the timid monarch, to whom a man who was a tall fellow of his hands, as well as a person of similar tastes to himself, might well be a special object of approval. A musician, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... condition of his dress showed he was one who was neither afraid of nor unfamiliar with poverty. Now he looked around him with a bright defiance, seemingly diverted by the havoc his single pair of arms and legs—for he had used both limbs in the brawl—had wrought among nine swashbucklers, and apparently prepared at any moment to repeat the performance, ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... a new hat. I'll have to go home without one, and the Pater will think I've been in a drunken brawl, and ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... which is never wanting among a people with quick animal spirits and sensitive organs: there was not the heavy sottishness which belongs to the thicker northern blood, nor the stealthy fierceness which in the more southern regions of the peninsula makes the brawl lead to ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... will send half-a-dozen milkings like you to perdition, and there will be a circle of black blood about her name in the traditions of the insurrection—do you hear? Have I cherished her for that purpose? to have her dedicated to a brawl!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Lacedaemonian had seized a little Seriphian[216] dog on any pretext and had sold it, would you have endured it quietly? Far from it, you would at once have sent three hundred vessels to sea, and what an uproar there would have been through all the city! there 'tis a band of noisy soldiery, here a brawl about the election of a Trierarch; elsewhere pay is being distributed, the Pallas figure-heads are being regilded, crowds are surging under the market porticos, encumbered with wheat that is being measured, wine-skins, oar-leathers, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... see the king," said she. "Little Caskoden's friend, Brandon, has been arrested for a brawl of some sort over in London, and Sir Edwin and Lady Jane have importuned me to obtain his release, which I have promised to do. Perhaps your grace will allow me to petition you in place of carrying my request ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... down, since Ruthven (for reasons best known to himself) summons neither Lennox nor Erskine. James, observing this circumstance, rapidly and cleverly remodels his plot, and does not begin to provoke the brawl till, being, Heaven knows why, in the turret, he hears his train talking outside in the street. He had shrewdly provided for their presence there by ordering a servant of his own to spread the false rumour of his departure, which Cranstoun innocently ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... and shorts protruding from the chimney, when his benighted intellect prompted him, at the imminent hazard of strangulation, to pay a visit to the object of his affections via that unusually circuitous route. Look at the fatal brawl between Sir Mulberry Hawk and his hopeful pupil; and rejoice at the final retributive justice which overtakes Mrs. Squeers, when she falls into the hands of her late victims, and is drenched in her turn with the loathsome brew she had so long ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... on the family at home, especially on Alexander, the eleventh laird, who was executed as a spy at Brest in 1769. A peculiarly handsome youth, who succeeded to the estates in 1760, he started life as an ensign in the 49th Foot in 1766. He narrowly escaped being run through in a brawl at Edinburgh, and, taking a hair of the dog that had nearly bitten him, he fatally pinked a butcher in the city of Cork in 1767. He escaped to La Rochelle, and ultimately got into touch with Lord Harcourt, our Ambassador in Paris. Harcourt sent the reckless lad to have ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... afterwards, together with the marines, cut up, and the parts distributed amongst the chiefs. The mutilated fragments were subsequently restored, and committed to the deep with all the honors due to the rank of the deceased. Thus, February 14, 1779, perished in an inglorious brawl with a set of savages, one of England's greatest navigators, whose services to science have never been surpassed by any man belonging to his profession. It may almost be said that he fell a victim to his ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... face had been mauled in a pot-house brawl, asserted that he had received his scars in battle. "Then," said an old soldier, "be careful the next time you run ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... a terrible frown, perhaps," suggested the latter. "When you do that, you certainly look like the gentleman who murdered the Colonna in a street brawl—I forget how long ago. You have his portrait. But I fancy the Princess would prefer—yes—that is more natural. You have her eyes. How the world raved about her twenty years ago—and raves ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... Odo and St. Dunstan force their rude way into the quiet room, and hurl coarse insults at the sweet-faced Queen, and drag poor Edwy back to the loud clamour of the drunken brawl. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... Barclay street. It will afford me unbounded pleasure if I may tell them that the meeting will not be disturbed; that you have decided to apply to politics the same spirit of fair play that you would demand in a street brawl." ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... winds, Nor with the brawling of the winds of air Mingles its liquid body. It doth leave All there—those under-realms below her heights— There to be overset in whirlwinds wild,— Doth leave all there to brawl in wayward gusts, Whilst, gliding with a fixed impulse still, Itself it bears its fires along. For, lo, That ether can flow thus steadily on, on, With one unaltered urge, the Pontus proves— That sea which floweth forth with ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... sky and the very walls of the palace of Kufa rained tears of blood as the head of the Martyr was borne before them. He cannot also approve the Sunni practice of converting a season of mourning into one of revelry and brawl, for he does not realize the influence of the local Hindu element upon the Mohurrum and cannot comprehend that the Indian additions to the festival have their roots in the deep soil of Hindu spirit-belief. For ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving

... that and next door to that, but this had been so long ago that even Jim's father, scarcely remembered it. He had, in fact, thought it a matter of so little moment that when he was dying from a pistol wound got in a brawl he neglected even to tell little Jim, who was five years old and miserably frightened. The white house became a boarding-house run by a tight-lipped lady from Macon, whom Jim called Aunt Mamie and detested with all ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... been sent for from their principal station near the churchyard, and had advanced with some degree of reluctance to quell what they considered as nothing better nor worse than a drunken brawl at a public-house, which they really considered they ought not to ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... world. After spending a few years in the service of Cardinal Cornaro, he quarreled with a Roman gentleman, vindicated his honor by some act of violence, and was outlawed from the city. Upon this he retired to Savona; and here again he met with similar adventures. Wounded in a brawl, he took the law into his own hands, and revenged himself upon his assailant. This punctilio proved him to be a true child of his age; and if we may credit his own account of both incidents, he behaved himself as became a gentleman of the period. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... he said. 'A case of that unbridled brawling which is, alas, but too common in our London streets. These two, possibly till now the closest friends, fall out over some point, probably of the most trivial nature, and what happens? They brawl. They—' ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... were nothing more—to bring such a wife to Algiers. It turned eyes upon him. Those who had been aware of him merely as a man of low tastes now began to notice his particular actions. He had a house in a certain impasse, and one night there was a brawl there—an affair of a man drunk and angry, of a knife drawn and some one stabbed. Before, it might have passed; our discipline was indulgent; but now it took on the shape of a scandal. It was brief and ugly, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... the chief man was Will Scarlet, who in reality was Robin's own cousin or nephew, young Gamwel of Gamwel Hall. Having slain his father's steward either by accident or in some brawl, young Will fled to his kinsman, Robin Hood, in Sherwood Forest, where, as in the case of Little John, he first made his acquaintance by fighting with him. As young Will on this occasion happened to be dressed very smartly ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... pitch that the Caithness folk met near his house at Halkirk, and demanded that the earl should protect them against the bishop's rapacity, and, either at the earl's suggestion or without any opposition on his part, they attacked the bishop in his house, which was close to Breithivellir (now Brawl) Castle, where John lived. The Saga gives the following description of ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray

... prosperity you have envied me my little share: you have tried to take away my school. With your own good name gone, you have wished to befoul mine. With no force of character to rise in the world, you have sought to drag me down. When I have avoided a brawl with you, preferring to live my life in peace with every man, you have said I was a coward, you unmanly slanderer! When I have desired to live the best life I could, you have turned even that against me. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... Captain wore, cropped almost close, his red hair, the fiery filaments of which, when under the reflection of certain lights, might have given the impression as though his face had been rubbed with phosphorus. Two teeth lost in a night orgy and brawl, he did not exactly remember now, caused him to spit out indistinct words which one could not always understand. He was bald only on the top of his head, like a tonsured monk, with a crop of short, curly hair, golden and shiny, around this circle ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... as Villon rose to make room for him upon the bench, thrust him rudely back into his place; and finally drew his sword and cut open his lower lip, by what I should imagine was a very clumsy stroke. Up to this point, Villon professes to have been a model of courtesy, even of feebleness: and the brawl, in his version, reads like the fable of the wolf and the lamb. But now the lamb was roused; he drew his sword, stabbed Sermaise in the groin, knocked him on the head with a big stone, and then, leaving him to his fate, went away to have his own lip doctored by a barber of the name of ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... him, and her face flamed. I set my teeth and swore to pay him for that some day, but I knew this to be no fitting time for a brawl. Despite me the fellow forced my hand. He planted himself squarely in our way and ogled my charge with impudent effrontery. Me he quite ignored, while his insulting eyes raked her fore and aft. My anger seethed, boiled over. Forward slid my foot behind his heel, my ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... cannot mean to hand the man over to the police for getting into a common brawl," said Cornwood, when I had given ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic

... sweet tranquility there, when thinking of what was going on below. Instead of the cursing and swearing, the scoffing, debauchery and drunkenness, instead of the pride and vanity, the torpitude of one quarter and the violence of another, yea, for all the bustle and the pomp, the hurly-burly and the brawl which there unceasingly bewildered men, and for the innumerable and unvarying sins, there was nothing to be seen here but sobriety, kindness and cheerfulness, peace and thankfulness, compassion, innocence and contentment stamped upon the face of every man, except where one or two silently ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... thoughts, had not noticed that a group of rough men and women near by, who had been drinking all day, had now become intoxicated and violent. They were pushing and staggering, howling and fighting, in reckless disregard of the comfort of others, and before she knew it she was in the midst of a drunken brawl. One rough fellow struck against her, and another trod on Dennis, who started up with a cry of pain. In a moment he comprehended the situation, and, snatching up Christine and the shawl, he pushed his way out of the melee with his right arm, the wretches striking at him ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... and call each other saints; the saints will get lost in a desert and call themselves weak brethren; the weak brethren will get weaker and weaker in a general atmosphere of imbecility; and the brawler will go off looking for somebody else with whom to brawl. ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... thus to punish a beggar half dead with cold and hunger and destitute of friends to nurse him afterwards, would be equivalent to killing him outright.] (5) Those who have already been beaten. [Whether in a brawl or by other officials. A second beating might result in death for which the presiding ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... away there was a tragedy in our town. A stranger, stopping over on his way East from California; was stabbed to death in an unseemly brawl. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... it, and of the houses nothing was left but indecencies, shattered walls and naked rafters, beneath which were choked heaps of household furniture, broken beds, battered lamps, and a wicker-chair overturned as in a drunken brawl. What had once been the street was now a quarry of broken bricks, with here and there vast circular craters as though a gigantic oak-tree had been torn out of the earth by the roots. And now the weird silence was broken by sounds as ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... his way. He was not the man, for the sake of a brawl and luck at play, to break friendship with the faithful companion, who had shown distinctly enough how fondly he loved his darling. He had hidden behind these bushes himself in his youth, and yet become a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... truly, to her remote world there was an impenetrable mystery about the young mistress of Staneholme, in her estrangement and mournfulness. Some said that she had favoured another lover, whom Staneholme had slain in a duel or a night-brawl; some that the old Staneholmes had sold themselves to the Devil, and a curse was on their remotest descendants; for was not the young laird fey at times, and would not the blithe sisters pass into care-worn wives ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... adventurers in London, living by his wits, and rioting on the quick profits of his pen. His career was brief, but fruitful,—fruitful in more senses than one. He was slain by one Francis Archer in a brawl, on the 1st ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... was human I did not miss," I answered grimly. "And it was human," I went on, pulling myself together, ashamed of having so nearly gone to pieces. "Of course it was human! The whole affair is plain enough. Not a drunken brawl, as Durand thinks; it was a drunken lout's practical joke, for which he has suffered. I suppose I must have filled him pretty full of bullets, and he has crawled away to die in Kerselec forest. It's a terrible affair; I'm sorry I fired so hastily; but that idiot Le Bihan and Max Fortin have ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... were early astir; to me it seemed all the earlier, as the window of our little room looked out on to the narrow courtyard, where the day dawned so slowly, but Marton, the principal assistant, was told off to brawl at the schoolboy's door, when breakfast ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... ye slaves'! Have ye brave sons'? Look in the next fierce brawl To see them die'. Have ye fair daughters'? Look To see them live, torn from your arms', distained', Dishonored', and if ye dare call for justice', Be answered ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... inexperienced peasants from the plains of Hungary, unused till then to any sight more bloody than a brawl in the village inn, trembled before this onslaught. Their officers shouted encouragement and oaths, barely audible above the mad yells of the Serbians. Nevertheless, they gave way before the gleaming line of bayonet blades before them. Some few rose to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... never to brawl in the open," says the wife, "so I'm lettin' your insults go. This boy is fresh from the mountains of Vermont. He's never been to New York in his life and he's comin' here now ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer

... affair here, which you may perhaps have heard of; but our minister has behaved very handsomely, and the Tuscan Government as well as it is possible for such a government to behave, which is not saying much for the latter. Some other English, and Scots, and myself, had a brawl with a dragoon, who insulted one of the party, and whom we mistook for an officer, as he was medalled and well mounted, &c. but he turned out to be a sergeant-major. He called out the guard at the gates to arrest us (we being unarmed); upon ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... dilated nostrils and clenched hands, all glowing and tingling with the excitement of the combat, and warmed with the thought that he could still, when there was need, take his own part in a street brawl in spite of his ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... at the summons, as the trumpet brayed, The sturdy shepherds arm them for the fray. Swift pour the Trojans from their camp, to aid Ascanius. Lo! 'tis battle's stern array, No village brawl, where churls dispute the day With charred oak-staves and cudgels. Broadswords clash With broadswords, and War's harvest far away Stands, bristling black with iron, as they dash Together, and drawn swords ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... brawl with a steamer with a yellow funnel, blue top and black band, lying at a pier among dhows. The shore took a hand in the game with small guns and rifles, and, as E14 manoeuvred about the roadstead "as requisite" there was a sudden unaccountable explosion which strained ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... even a gentle sense of surprise that such things should be so beautiful, and yet when we come to live in them, to spend even a few hours in them, we seem stifled and oppressed. On the other hand there are people to whom the sea-shore is a companion, an exhilaration; and not so much for the brawl of the shore as for the limited vastness, the finite infinite of the ocean as they see it. Such people often come home braced and nerved, and if they spoke out the truth, would have only to say, 'We have seen the horizon ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... Henderson's and the Master's ride to Falkland, 45; his view of the notary Robertson's evidence respecting Henderson, 61 note; as to the theory of an accidental brawl, 94; on James and the pot of gold tale, 95; on Bruce's interrogation of the King, 109; on the invitation from the King to Gowrie, Atholl, and others to join him ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... they take naturally to sports, these highlanders. Success has crowned Mr. Worcester's efforts; in witness whereof this very concourse of Banawe may be cited, where over 10,000 persons, mostly unarmed, mingled freely with one another without so much as a brawl ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... in however humble a capacity, with him. It vexed him sorely to think that Clive, whose memory for faces, as his recognition of Bulger after twelve years had shown, was very good, might recognize him, should they meet, as the boy who had played a part in what was almost a street brawl. Still, it could not be helped. Desmond comforted himself with the hope that Clive had taken no particular note of him, and, if they should ever encounter, would probably meet him ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... a brawl in your presence, Miss Parker, but he would have ruined our old Bob horse if I hadn't overtaken him." He turned to the man on the ground. "Get up, Loustalot!" The latter staggered to his feet. "Pablo," Farrel continued, "take this man back to the ranch and lock him ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... more and more in favour with the gamblers and rufflers of the times. It was at the bar of this house that Hildebrand Horden, an actor of talent and one who promised to win a great name, was killed in a brawl. Colley Cibber tells that he was exceedingly handsome, and that before he was buried "it was observable that two or three days together several of the fair sex, well dressed, came in masks, and some in their own coaches, to visit the ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... they retained the manner of accord up to the last. Not for them the matrimonial brawl, the solemn accusation and recrimination, the pathetic protestations of proprietary rights. For them no sacred view that at all costs they must make each other miserable—not even the belief that they had the right to do so. No, there was no relief for their sore hearts. They walked ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... graceless uncles, who had seen the world, were ever ready to bolster the matter through, and as they were brawny, broad-shouldered warriors, and veterans in brawl as well as debauch, they had great sway with the multitude. If any one pretended to assert the innocence of the duchess, they interrupted him with a loud ha! ha! of derision. "A pretty story, truly," would they cry, "about a wolf and a dragon, and a young widow rescued ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... into a disreputable coffee-house near Charing Cross. The three men rudely pushed their way into a parlour where some other roisterers were drinking; the intrusion was naturally resented, and as each and every one of the party chanced to be better filled with wine than with politeness, a brawl was the consequence. Swords were drawn and Savage killed a Mr. Sinclair, after which drunken act he cut the head of a barmaid who tried to hold him. Then more swearing, shrieking and sword-thrusting, a cry for soldiers, a flight from the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... inevitable that difficulties should spring up. The boundaries of civil and ecclesiastical law were wholly uncertain, the scientific study of law had hardly begun, and there was much debatable ground which might be won by the most arrogant or the most skilful of the combatants. Every brawl of a few noisy lads in the Oxford streets or at the gates of some cathedral or monastic school was enough to kindle the strife as to the jurisdiction of Church or State which shook medieval ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... arm-chair while the fires of Hell Mix with his hearth; but take and break her, you! She's yet a colt. Well groom'd and strongly curb'd She might not rank with those detestable That to the hireling leave their babe, and brawl Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street. They say she's comely; there's the fairer chance: I like her none the less for rating at her! Besides, the woman wed is not as we, But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... swamper from one of the worst rat holes in the port. Like as not that youngster would have had his brains kicked out in a brawl, or been fried to a crisp when some drunk got wild with a blaster, before the year was out. He'd done him a real kindness, given him a chance at a future less than one man in a billion ever had the power to even ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... his sword, though still with a bright eye on Alan, "if this brawl is over I will but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and added with a haughtier smile 'And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summoned out She kept her state, and left the drunken king To brawl at Shushan ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... and in order to gratify Madam Snob's curiosity, just make use of it. Tell her some were hanged, some were drowned, some were in prison for debt, one fought in the War of the Roses, one was killed in a street brawl, another hanged for treason. Tell her—well tell her anything that will satisfy her curiosity, for there are times when an elastic conscience is excusable. There is another Madam Snob, who not knowing in ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt

... Louis. These royal ladies were merely first sultanas, and had no right, it was thought, to feel jealousy, or to resent neglect. Each returning sabbath saw Whitehall lighted up, and heard the tabors sound for a branle, (Anglicised 'brawl'). This was a dance which mixed up everybody, and called a brawl, from the foot being shaken to a quick time. Gaily did his Majesty perform it, leading to the hot exercise Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, stout and homely, and leaving Lady ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton



Words linked to "Brawl" :   fighting, fight, scrap, do, wrangle, brawler, combat, dispute, free-for-all, bash, party



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