Word.ws English Dictionary

ruffianize

ruffianize verb: to act like a ruffian.

Verb

ruffianize (third-person singular simple present ruffianizes, present participle ruffianizing, simple past and past participle ruffianized)

  1. (archaic, intransitive) To act like a ruffian.
  2. (archaic, transitive) To make ruffianly.

Forms of ruffianize

third-person singular presentruffianizes
present participleruffianizing
past participleruffianized
pastruffianized

Origin of ruffianize

From ruffian + -ize.

Questions about ruffianize

What does ruffianize mean?
Ruffianize means to act like a ruffian.
What part of speech is ruffianize?
Ruffianize is a verb.
What is the past tense of ruffianize?
The past tense of ruffianize is ruffianized.

Words near ruffianize in the dictionary

  1. ruffianhood
  2. ruffianing
  3. ruffianish
  4. ruffianism
  5. ruffianisms
  6. ruffianize
  7. ruffianized
  8. ruffianizes
  9. ruffianizing
  10. ruffianlike
  11. ruffianly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ruffianize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ruffianize.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ruffianize. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.