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RUFFIAN
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A cruel and brutal fellow
Synonyms:
bully; hooligan; roughneck; rowdy; ruffian; tough; yob; yobbo; yobo
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("ruffian" is a kind of...):
aggressor; assailant; assaulter; attacker (someone who attacks)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ruffian"):
bullyboy (a swaggering tough; usually one acting as an agent of a political faction)
muscle; muscleman (a bully employed as a thug or bodyguard)
skin; skinhead (a member of any of several British or American groups consisting predominantly of young people who shave their heads; some engage in white supremacist and anti-immigrant activities and this leads to the perception that all skinheads are racist and violent)
plug-ugly; tough guy (someone who bullies weaker people)
Derivation:
ruffianly (violent and lawless)
Context examples:
I put it down as the gossip of drunken ruffians, but none the less you have served me vastly by calling my attention to it.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Gennaro was able to do a service to an Italian gentleman—he saved him from some ruffians in the place called the Bowery, and so made a powerful friend.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him?
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The kindly, charitable, good old governor—how could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian!
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Were you addressing me, sir? says the doctor; and when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, I have only one thing to say to you, sir, replies the doctor, that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
No communication—a—until—Miss Wickfield—a—redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel—HEEP! (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when he felt it coming.) Inviolable secret—a—from the whole world—a—no exceptions—this day week—a—at breakfast-time—a—everybody present—including aunt—a—and extremely friendly gentleman—to be at the hotel at Canterbury—a—where—Mrs. Micawber and myself—Auld Lang Syne in chorus—and—a—will expose intolerable ruffian—HEEP!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
What we pay rates and taxes for I don’t know, when any ruffian can come in and break one’s goods.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He was always a gallant ruffian, who disdained to go down before an antagonist as long as his legs would sustain him.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A card had come up on a salver, and it was followed by the same bearded ruffian who had attacked me in the street.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Indeed, it was almost mesmeric, the effect which this giggling ruffian had produced upon the unfortunate linguist, for he could not speak of him save with trembling hands and a blanched cheek.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
