Is 「喧嘩」 a verbal fight or a physical fight? Taking 2 sentences from WWWJDIC as examples: > 1. > > 2. > > I was wondering is it true that the in the sentences above may be interpreted both ways (i.e. it may be a physical fight, but it could as well have been a quarrel (verbal fight) instead)?

There’s actually a wikipedia article on ! <

It does mention both verbal and physical fights. It seems the original meaning was something like “a noisy ruckus”, from which the present uses developed. (Kangorin says the same.)