brawler
Americannoun
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a person who fights angrily, noisily, and roughly, often under the influence of alcohol.
He was a scrapper and brawler, a drunk and a bully, often hauled before the justices for punching someone.
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a contentious or argumentative person.
No doubt about it—this congressman is a brawler, but it appears he’s all bark and no bite.
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a practitioner of a style of boxing characterized by very powerful punches with little variety of technique or skilled footwork.
Most brawlers tend to walk into range with no jabs or setups and very little head movement.
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any computer game of a genre that features hand-to-hand combat, often focused on a hero who is greatly outnumbered.
Join your favorite anime heroes for an epic fight to the finish in this old-school brawler.
Etymology
Origin of brawler
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Opposition leader and Conservative Party head Pierre Poilievre, normally a relentless partisan brawler, has called it "well-crafted and eloquently delivered."
From Barron's • Jan. 27, 2026
That stifled voice might find comfort in watching Ritchson’s brawler get his bell rung and refuse to back down from the inevitable conflict that might break him.
From Salon • Feb. 20, 2025
His ads cultivated an image of a legal brawler whose menacing presence on the screen could be used in a plaintiff’s favor.
From New York Times • Mar. 16, 2024
The early brawler, the reformed sage, the repeat offender, the penitent observer of silence, the strategist, the troublemaker, the king of the kids, the petulant self-justifier, the granular cricket analyst, the late-career paragon.
From BBC • Nov. 14, 2023
Rain can really become grand at such moments, and no more resembling a mere shower than the cry of a single brawler in the streets is like the roar of a mighty multitude.
From A Day's Ride A Life's Romance by Lever, Charles James
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
