I was reading an article in the WSJ today and came across a word I’d never seen or heard spoken: donnybrook. The article was about the town of South Burlington, Vermont where citizens are upset about changing the name of their high school mascot (Rebels). To describe the situation, the reporter used the word ‘donnybrook.’
A quick search of online dictionaries came up with: brawl, public quarrel, contentious dispute. The word sounded Irish to me, so I also wanted to know the origin of donnybrook. Merriam Webster helped me out. You’ve got to love this.
“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…abolished in 1855, but not before its name had become a generic term for a free-for-all.”
With all the controversy the US experienced during the election season last year, I am surprised I haven’t heard donnybrook used before.
