thug

From Hindi ठग (ṭhag, “swindler, fraud, cheat”).

Thuggee was a network of gangs in India from the 17th century to the 19th century who robbed and murdered travellers, often by strangling and beating their victims to death. 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. Related to English thatch, deck.

• enPR: thŭg, IPA^(key): /θʌɡ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (India) IPA^(key): /ʈʰəɡ/
• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

thug (plural thugs)

1. A person who is a member of a gang or criminal organization.
2. A violent, aggressive, or truculent person.
   • 1915, Cale Young Rice, “My Country”, in Collected Plays and Poems, page 342:

     They call you a land of license—free but to thug and thief.

   • 2021, Anna Durand, Natural Satisfaction:

     I pushed up out of my chaise and headed for the miniten court. Leah handed me her thug as I walked past her.

3. (historical) One of a band of assassins formerly active in northern India who worshipped Kali and sacrificed their victims to her.
4. (African-American Vernacular) 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.

   Synonym: phansigar

5. (horticulture) An overvigorous plant that spreads and dominates the flowerbed.
6. A wooden bat used in the game of miniten, fitting around the player's hand.

• See also Thesaurus:villain

thug (third-person singular simple present thugs, present participle thugging, simple past and past participle thugged)

1. (informal, transitive) To commit acts of thuggery, to live the life of a thug, to menace, to commit crime.
   • 1854, My Ducats and My Daughter, volume II, page 247:

     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.

   • 1968, Harry Wellington Laidler, Boycotts and the Labor Struggle, page 302:

     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,

   • 1972, F. Maurice Speed, Film Review, page 219:

     C.C. and Company. Another story about the young American motor-cycle hoodlum gangs: raping, thugging and robbing their way along the roads.

2. (informal, transitive) (often with out) To appear as a thug; to dress and act in a manner reminiscent of a thug.
   • 2003 April, Dorian Missick, quotee, “Clothesline: Dorian Missick”, in Playboy Magazine, page 44:

     I don’t thug out, but I’m not Wall Street, either. Russell Simmons and Puffy have clothes for this look in the affordable range.

   • 2006, Katina King, Ride Wit’ Me, page 11:

     Oh. Besides Allen Iverson, basketball players don’t be thugged out enough for me. I like me a roughneck.

   • 2017, Todd Dedman, quoting research participant ‘Luke’, Purists and Peripherals: Hip-hop and Grime Subcultures, page 169:

     Well, I’d like to see more positive images of black men. Ones that don’t just go on about having a big dick, thugging and bashing on some girl.

• Guth

Borrowed from English thug, from Hindi ठग (ṭhag).

• (Belgium, France) IPA^(key): /tœɡ/
• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /tɔɡ/

• Audio:

  (file)

thug m or f (plural thugs)

1. (derogatory) thug, yob.

• (Munster, Connacht) IPA^(key): /ˈhuɡ/^[1][2][3]
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /ˈhʌɡ/^[4]

thug

1. analytic past indicative of tabhair

• IPA^(key): [huk]

thug (dependent tug)

1. past of thoir