thug

/θəg/

/θəg/

Other forms: thugs

A thug is a bad guy or a bully, especially a violent one. A thug might break into someone's house, push its owners around, and steal their TV.

It's hard to reason with thugs, since they'd rather intimidate and physically hurt people than talk. A playground bully is one kind of thug, and an armed robber is an even more dangerous one. The noun thug may have its oldest roots in the Sanskrit word sthaga-s, "cunning or fraudulent," and it's definitely related to the Marathi and Hindi thag, "cheat or swindler." The earliest use of thug, from 1810, was "member of a murdering gang of robbers in India."

Definitions of thug

1. noun

   an aggressive and violent young criminal
   synonyms: goon, hood, hoodlum, punk, strong-armer, tough, toughie

   types:

   bully

   a hired thug

   type of:

   criminal, crook, felon, malefactor, outlaw

   someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime