RUFFIAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does ruffian mean? 

• RUFFIAN (noun)
  The noun RUFFIAN has 1 sense:

1. a cruel and brutal fellow

  Familiarity information: RUFFIAN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RUFFIAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A cruel and brutal fellow

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

bully; hooligan; roughneck; rowdy; ruffian; tough; yob; yobbo; yobo

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 

The floor was thick with mud where ruffians had sat down to drink or consult after wading in the marshes round their camp.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Young Firby, the ruffian, ’e’s a waiter now.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My companion is also a dangerous ruffian. And together we are going through your house.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian's rouge.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A ruffian—a common brawling ruffian—that's what you have become.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The crew were a set of ruffians, specially picked for the job.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to jump until I should have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian who pursued me.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Some of them were most ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped, perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them, and when I took to my heels, stoned me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You could no longer bear the idea of this ruffian owning her?

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)