thug
/θʌɡ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.48 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A person who is a member of a gang or criminal organization.
noun
A violent, aggressive, or truculent person.
noun
A person who use intimidation to coerce others.
noun
One of a band of assassins formerly active in northern India who worshipped Kali and sacrificed their victims to her.
noun
One who, usually as a result of social disadvantage, has turned to committing crimes (e.g. selling drugs, robbery, assault, etc.) to make a living; a gangsta.
noun
An overvigorous plant that spreads and dominates the flowerbed.
Example Sentences
- "They call you a land of license—free but to thug and thief."
- "Every summer brought the prospect of the dragonships snaking their way upriver, each vessel filled with thirty or more rapacious thugs."
- "I pushed up out of my chaise and headed for the miniten court. Leah handed me her thug as I walked past her."
- "Mr. Ingleby ascertained at the office—after threading the mazes of passage and staircase as though he expected momently to be Thugged—that his nephew had not yet come."
- "The report then records the arrest of the whole force of the union paper, the Victor Record, the forced resignation of many other civil officers in the Cripple Creek district who were in sympathy with the miners, […] the severe thugging of many of the well-known labor organizers,"
- "C.C. and Company. Another story about the young American motor-cycle hoodlum gangs: raping, thugging and robbing their way along the roads."
Etymology
Borrowed from Hindustani ठग (ṭhag) / ٹھگ (ṭhag, “swindler, fraud, cheat”), further derived from Prakrit 𑀞𑀕 (ṭhaga), of uncertain origin. See there for more. Thuggee was a network of gangs in India from the 17th century to the 19th century who robbed and murdered travellers, often by strangling. During British Imperial rule of India, many Indian words passed into common English, and by 1810 thug referred to a member of these Indian gangs. The sense was adopted more generally as "ruffian, cutthroat, and cruel robber" by 1839. Perhaps related to English thatch, deck.
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /θʌɡ/
- British English: /θʌɡ/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Sports.