ruction

plural ructions

1. A noisy quarrel or fight.

   Dad drove and Mum commented on Dad's driving; not too much, but just enough to occasionally lead to ructions.

   2014, Murray C. Morison, Time Sphere

   5 more examples

   “If you do want to go home, here’s your whip. Don’t fall off. Say to her you wanted it, or there might be ructions.”

   1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter XII, in The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 144

   She could see there were going to be ructions. Sure enough there'd be a scene between them, when Sebastian found what Tilly had been up to.

   1947, Christopher Sheridan, Bread and circuses, page 52

   Although she acknowledged that the development of an opera house had caused considerable ructions in Australia, she nevertheless implied that its construction was a sort of coming-of-age for the rough antipodeans

   2002, Ruth Bereson, The Operatic State: Cultural Policy and the Opera House, page 148

   While the U.S. government had a huge fiscal deficit, similar to Greece's, the financial ructions emanating from Athens sent nervous money flocking to the United States, not away.

   2013, Alan S. Blinder, After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, ..., page 381

   […]the geopolitical ructions caused by Donald Trump's muscle-flexing in the Middle East, Vladimir Putin's military aggression and tense economic relations with China.

   2026 June 13, Patrick Jenkins, “Lunch with the FT: Thomas Buberl”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3

   Synonyms: brawl, disturbance, fracas, row, uproar, argument, argy-bargy, altercation