Word.ws English Dictionary

ruffians

ruffians is the plural of ruffian.

ruffians is the third-person singular simple present indicative of ruffian.

Meaning of ruffian

Noun

ruffian (plural ruffians)

  1. A scoundrel, rascal, or unprincipled, deceitful, brutal and unreliable person.
    • What wilt thou on thy death-bed play the Ruffian?1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  2. (obsolete) A pimp; a pander.
  3. (obsolete) A lover; a paramour.
    • He [her husband] is no sooner abroad than she is instantly at home, revelling with her ruffians.1621, John Reynolds, The Triumphs of God's Revenge against the crying and execrable Sinne of Murther

See all 5 meanings of ruffian

Questions about ruffians

What is ruffians the plural of?
Ruffians is the plural of ruffian.

Words near ruffians in the dictionary

  1. ruffianlike
  2. ruffianly
  3. ruffiano
  4. ruffianos
  5. ruffianous
  6. ruffians
  7. Ruffieux
  8. ruffin
  9. ruffing
  10. Ruffings
  11. Ruffini

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ruffians (page history and authors); ruffian (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: “ruffians.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ruffians. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.