thugs

nounhoodlum

Synonyms for thugs

noun hoodlum

Antonyms for thugs

Word Origin & History

1810, "member of a gang of murderers and robbers in India who strangled their victims," from Marathi thag, thak "cheat, swindler," Hindi thag, perhaps from Sanskrit sthaga-s "cunning, fraudulent," possibly from sthagayati "(he) covers, conceals," from PIE root *(s)teg- "cover" (see stegosaurus). Transferred sense of "ruffian, cutthroat" first recorded 1839. The more correct Indian name is phanseegur, and the activity was described in English as far back as c.1665. Rigorously prosecuted by the British from 1831, they were driven from existence, but the process extended over the rest of the 19c.

Example Sentences for thugs

Ned buzzed by, picked up two of the thugs, and hauled them off to the cells.

I have to browbeat, bribe, blackmail and bulldoze you thugs into doing a simple job.

The thugs lay in wait for the men with pokes from the "inside."

Murdoch remained outside, and one of the thugs reached for him.

This place had formerly been noted for the thieves and thugs that infested it.

His reading had not told him that no maimed persons could be offered to the goddess of the Thugs.

The Thugs themselves seem to have been the only people who moved in force.

The Thugs were harried and hunted from one end of India to the other.

And yet one of these people is a Thug and the other a mother of Thugs!

This comes of overdoing the suppression of the Thugs; they had their merits.