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Thug   Listen
noun
Thug  n.  
1.
One of an association of robbers and murderers in India who practiced murder by stealthy approaches, and from religious motives. They have been nearly exterminated by the British government.
2.
An assassin; a ruffian; a rough. "Thugs and midnight rounders."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thug" Quotes from Famous Books



... closed in, sent a staggering left to the thug's heart and a murderous right to his chin, so that he reeled and fell as if shot—while P. Sybarite with a bound again caught the boy by the arm and whirled him out through ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... send a good deal of what they got to K[a]li's temple, in a village near Mirz[a]pur, where the establishment of priests was entirely supported by them. K[a]li (or Bhav[a]n[i]) herself directed that victims should be strangled, not bled (so the Thug legend). Their symbol was a pick, emblem of the goddess, unto whom a religious ceremony was performed before and after the murder was committed. Local small bankers often ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... like these it brings out what is in the man, and these murders and lesser brutalities of the soldiers while policing San Francisco tell us that the soldier is but an infuriated thug, ready to do murder and rapine at the first opportunity; the civic authorities of Oakland recognized this as a fact when they finally allowed the reopening of the saloons, for the barkeepers were specially interdicted ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... distance of three thousand leagues. She has come from the far East, like the three enchanted kings, to Cologne; but, unlike them, she and her race have come with hate and not with love. She comes to flatter, and to deceive, and to rob, for she is a lying prophetess, and a she-Thug; she will greet you with blessings which will make your hearts rejoice, but your hearts' blood would freeze, could you hear the curses which to herself she murmurs against you; for she says, that in her children's ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... done as much, more than once; but he's so powerful that nobody can get him. He's the king of his ward; he keeps a gang of gunmen on the East Side, and he's the worst thug in ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... Down, down, down I went. There are a great many things in life that I have forgotten. There are a great many more that I expect to forget, but that first ride down the coal shaft I never can forget. Thug! I had struck bottom. It is said that when one starts down hill in this world he keeps on going until he strikes bottom. My readers will certainly agree with me that reaching a resting place eight hundred feet under the surface I had found the lowest round of the ladder. ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... Mr. Smith had ever neglected his duty, and the whole thing narrows down to the fact that he had incurred the enmity of the liquor dealers, who induced the Company to dismiss him. This action of the Company may please the men who hired a thug to assault Mr. Smith, and nearly batter his life out, but it is a poor way to make friends of peaceful citizens. It speaks poorly for personal liberty when a man is dismissed from a railway because he opposes the liquor traffic,—a traffic which the Company itself ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... one goes—both on and off duty. In the stores, along the street, on the cars, at the club, the alert reporter gathers many an important news item. The merchant, the cabman, the preacher, the barkeeper, the patrolman, the thug, the club-man, the porter, all make valuable acquaintances, as they are able often to give one stories or clues to the solution of problems that are all but invaluable to the paper. And such facts as they present are given solely because of ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... to Mikah Samon after the local thug in the horror outfit had bashed him with the club. This was a messy and unexpected end for the man after he had managed to survive the crash of the ship. Jason had no special affection for the under-nourished ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey

... exasperates you with his fool performances to the point of dancing cursing wild crying rage, and then accepts your—well, reproofs—so meekly that you come off the boil as though some one had removed you from the fire, and you feel like a low-browed thug. ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... Lieutenant Ward, one of the suppressors of Thuggee (Thuggee, in Hindostan, signifies a deceiver; fraud, not open force, being employed). This gentleman kindly showed me the approvers or king's evidence of his establishment, belonging to those three classes of human scourges, the Thug, Dakoit, and Poisoner. Of these the first was the Thug, a mild-looking man, who had been born and bred to the profession: he had committed many murders, saw no harm in them, and felt neither shame nor remorse. His organs of observation and destructiveness were large, and the cerebellum small. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... not to be," I told him. "False modesty is the refuge of the incompetent. I'm going to catch this thug and I'll tell you how I'll do it. He's going to hit again soon, and wherever he hits there will be some kind of a periodical with my plant in it. Whatever else he is after, he is going to take all of the magazines and papers he can find. Partly to satisfy ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)

... acquainted with Billy Byrne of Kelly's gang. Billy's brain was befuddled, so that it took some time for an idea to wriggle its way through, but his courage was all there, and all to the good. Billy was a mucker, a hoodlum, a gangster, a thug, a tough. When he fought, his methods would have brought a flush of shame to the face of His Satanic Majesty. He had hit oftener from behind than from before. He had always taken every advantage of ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Brahmin, like the Thug of seven victims, has tasted the sugar of blood, sweeter upon his tongue than to the lips of an eager babe the pearl-tipped nipple of its mother. Henceforth he must slay, slay, slay, mutilate and ravish, burn and slay, in the name of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... what a crowd! How, when shall we get past This nuisance, these unending ant-like swarms? Yet, Ptolemy, we owe thee thanks for much Since heaven received thy sire! No miscreant now Creeps Thug-like up, to maul the passer-by. What games men played erewhile—men shaped in crime, Birds of a feather, rascals every one! —We're done for, Gorgo darling—here they are, The Royal horse! Sweet sir, don't trample ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... no doubt have called it a result of the Nazarene religion, and a Thug paper an awful example of what happens when your ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc

... seem, even criminals have human feelings in common with all of us. The old Thug who stepped aside into the bushes and prayed earnestly while his son was throwing his first strangling cloth around the throat of the English traveler—prayed for that son's honorable, successful beginning in his life devotion—was a good father. And when ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... seth of his treasure without an outcry—and if there is an outcry, that he will not go back to those of his caste in Poona, and when trouble is made, think you that the Dewan will thank us for the bungling of this? And as to the matter of a thug or a decoit, half our men have been taught the art of the strangler. With these,"—and extending his massive arms he closed his coarse hands in a gnarled grip,—"with these I would, with one sharp in-turn on the roomal, crack the neck of the merchant and he would be dead in the taking ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... forthwith, had not Bill given an ultimatum. With a small box under his left arm, he shifted his crutch to his left fingers and slipped the free hand into his pocket, drawing forth about the wickedest-looking pistol that any thug would use. The five began backing away, the spokesman turning quite pale and the others, no doubt, ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple

... I underestimate him gravely he is incapable of such finesse. He is a thug first, a thief afterwards. He would have killed me out of hand if it had been he who had me at his mercy, down here, in the dark. Nor would he have been able to open the safe without using an explosive. That, indeed, is why, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... fleeting glow, Kiss of friend, and stab of foe, Ooze of moon, and foam of brine, Noose of Thug, and creeper's twine, Hottest flame, and coldest ash, Priceless gems, and poorest trash; Throw away the solid ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain

... made him burst out. Tommy La Croix, the French Canuck, a quick, grinning, evil-spoken, tobacco-chewing, rather likeable young thug, stared directly at Carl and said, loudly: "'Nother thing I noticed was that Frazer didn't have his pants pressed. Funny, ain't it, that when even these dudes from Yale get to be cranks they're short on ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... further inquiry by saying: "A letter of credit of mine was stolen last night. I had a tussle in the room, and was rather getting the best of it. The thug slipped suddenly away. Probably hid the letter in ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... detects pantaloon in a prelate, a satyr in a president, a pig in a priest, an ostrich in a minister, and a goose in a chief clerk. He holds to Fortune, the {Greek: Txae} of Alcman, which is, {Greek: Eunomas te ka Peithos adelph ka Promatheas thugtaer},Chance, the sister of Order and Trust, and the daughter of Forethought. The Scandinavian Spinners of Fate were Urd (the Was, the Past), Verdandi (the Becoming, or Present), and Skuld (the To-be, or Future). He alludes to Plato, who made the Demiourgos create ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... "and you think your father was strangled by a Thug? My dear child, the Thugs were stamped out years ago. You'll read all about it in the preface of that book, if I remember. But it's long since I read the work. Besides, darling," he added, drawing her to him caressingly, "the Thugs never came ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... eyes lit with sardonic mockery. The young woman knew already that she had nothing to fear from this brown-faced man. His face was not that of a thug. It carried its own letter of recommendation written on it. Instinctively she felt that he had not come to rob. A lively curiosity began ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine



Words linked to "Thug" :   tough, bully, toughie, hoodlum, goon, crook, malefactor, hood, strong-armer, felon, punk, outlaw, criminal



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