I'm reading a book published in 1973 that includes the line: "He had no need to be on the faculty to join in the donnybrooks which plagued the early history of the Catholic University of America..."
Have you ever heard the word "donnybrook"? It means a fight, of one kind or another, and it's derived from Donnybrook in Dublin. This area was once the location of Donnybrook Fair, an annual event which became infamous for drunkenness and fighting. Hence the word.
Today Donnybrook is a very gentrified area, the home of Ireland's national broadcaster. It's in the postcode Dublin 4, which has been a metonym for snooty Irish liberalism for decades.
I'd never heard the term "donnybrook" until I encountered it in the writings of G.K. Chesterton. I certainly never hear it in Irish discourse. It's somewhat surprising to meet it in a book written in 1973, although the fact that it's an American book written about an Irish-American might have influenced that.
I think we should revive the word! In fact, I want to revive almost every archaic word I come across. I might set up an Association for the Revival of Words That Have Fallen Into Desuetude. Membership is free and open to everybody. All you need to do is repeat the phrase "brown study" three times with your hand over your heart.
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