brawler

[ braw-ler ]

noun

1. 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.

2. a contentious or argumentative person:

   No doubt about it—this congressman is a brawler, but it appears he’s all bark and no bite.

3. 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.

4. 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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of brawler¹

brawl ( def ) + -er ¹( def )

Example Sentences

“You’ve got to be a brawler,” said Bill Miller, a longtime Republican strategist in Texas.

From Seattle Times

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

If Porter’s candidacy is about passion and her pledge to be a brawler in Washington, and Lee’s is about presence and being a rare Black woman in the U.S.

From Los Angeles Times

As Billy stood holding the horse, Washington waded into the knot of brawlers and grabbed two of them.

From Literature

The governor had portrayed himself as one of the Republican Party’s fiercest political brawlers, but he pulled his punches in the most important race of his life.

From New York Times

Related Words

• assailant
• boxer
• champion
• combatant
• mercenary
• militant
• opponent
• soldier
• tanker
• warlord
• warrior