Word of the day! 10-2-08

Today's Word
donnybrook \DON-ee-brook\, noun:1. A brawl; a free-for-all.2. A heated quarrel or dispute.

"But this was the beginning of Tommy's years of fighting back, a period that ended in a donnybrook conducted all over the O'Connor house.-- Tracy Kidder, Home Town

"Wine and talk flow freely, so much so that the meal ends with a Rooney family donnybrook over, typically enough, religion and politics.-- Howard Frank Mosher, "24 Hours in Due East, S.C.", New York Times, April 7, 1991

"The author finds few villains in "West Virginia's Battle of the Books," which describes a donnybrook over the content of public school textbooks during the mid-70's in the "seemingly placid community" of Charleston, W.Va.-- Kaye Northcott, "Round Up the Usual Enigmas", New York Times, February 23, 1992

A donnybrook is so called after Donnybrook, Ireland, a suburb of Dublin that once held an annual fair known for its brawls.