Forms: 6 breull, bruill, 6–7 broyl(e, broile, 8–9 Sc. brulyie, -zie, 6– broil. [app. f. BROIL v.2: cf. It. broglio ‘hurlie burlie, confusion, mingle mangle’ (Florio); the F. brouille is mod. and from the verb.]

1

  1.  A confused disturbance, tumult or turmoil; a quarrel. See also BRULYIE.

2

1525.  Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. 140 (R.). We shall make a great breull in Englande.

3

1548.  Hall, Chron. (1809), 272. The Erle of Warwickes faccion intendyng to set a bruill in the countrey.

4

1571.  Ascham, Scholem. (Arb.), 158. In the middes[t] of the broyle betwixt Cæsar and Pompeie.

5

1591.  Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., I. i. 53. Prosper this Realme, keepe it from Ciuill Broyles.

6

1664.  H. More, Myst. Iniq., 439. Filling the Empire with intestine Broils.

7

1797.  T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), IV. 173. Plunging us in all the broils of the European nations.

8

1813.  Scott, Rokeby, III. xxiii. Foremost he fought in every broil.

9

1876.  Green, Short Hist., iii. § 4 (1882), 130. A tavern row between scholar and townsman widens into a general broil.

10

  † b.  To set in broil, on a broil. Obs.

11

1577.  Holinshed, Chron., I. 73/1. The greeuous danger of setting things in broile. Ibid., IV. 204. To set things in broil … within this hir realme of England.

12

1603.  Knolles, Hist. Turkes (1621), 839. That warre, which would set all Europe on a broile.

13

  2.  Comb., as broil-maker.

14

1561.  Stow, Chron., an. 1104 (R.). Letting out the broyle-maker into France.

15