ruction

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 22, 2011 is: ruction • \RUK-shun\  • noun 1 : a noisy fight 2 : disturbance, uproar Examples: The ruction outside the door prompted me to investigate what was going on. "I wrapped my hand around it [the whip], but didn't want to use it and cause a ruction." -- From Damien Broderick’s 2011 novel Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order Did you know? English offers up a scramble of colorful words for what can happen when tempers spill over. For example, we have "melee," "fracas," "donnybrook," "ruckus," and one especially for baseball fans, "rhubarb." "Ruction" is rarer than most of these. Etymologists speculate that "ruction" came to English in the early 19th century as a shortening and alteration of another word suggesting an episode of violence: "insurrection." The earliest uses of "ruction" specifically make reference to the Irish Rebellion of 1798, an uprising against British rule on that island. "Ruckus" came later, toward the end of the 19th century, and was probably formed by combining "ruction" with "rumpus." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.