Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use badass in a sentence

17 example sentences · noun, adjective

Badass means a belligerent or mean person; a person with an unpleasantly extreme appearance, attitudes, or behavior. Example: “Don’t mess with that guy, he’s a real badass.”

Examples of badass by meaning

nounA belligerent or mean person; a person with an unpleasantly extreme appearance, attitudes, or behavior.

  • Don’t mess with that guy, he’s a real badass.
  • There are badasses, and there are badasses.1995, Robert Girardi, Madeleine’s Ghost, New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →ISBN
  • A survival tactic I learned on the psych ward was how to quickly size up potential enemies or garden-variety badasses.2012, Ilsa J. Bick, Drowning Instinct, Minneapolis, Minn.: Carolrhoda Lab, →ISBN

nounA person considered impressive due to courage, skill, daring, audacity, and/or toughness.

  • "I'm a badass." (Jack Nicholson to a New York friend, early 1973.)1975, Norman Dickens, “Badass”, in Jack Nicholson: The Search for a Superstar, New York, N.Y.: New American Library, →OCLC, page 124
  • Nowadays they're a bunch of wannabe badasses, but back in the day they were something to behold.1998, Jason Flores-Williams, chapter 6, in The Last Stand of Mr America, San Francisco, Calif.: Caught Inside Press, →OCLC; republished...
  • Known throughout the Spec-Ops community as the best of the best, they were the go-to badasses in the air for the go-to badasses on the ground, and Sandra was the first female pilot to be made a member.2013 June, Scott McEwen, Thomas Koloniar, chapter 2, in Sniper Elite: One-way Trip: A Novel (Touchstone Book), New York, N.Y.: Simon &...

adjectiveBelligerent and troublesome.

  • Probably because he was a junior high school teacher and was around badass, hollerin' kids all day.2005, Cupcake Brown, chapter 2, in A Piece of Cake: A Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Crown, →ISBN, page 21
  • I worked at one bar on the Upper East Side that was owned by a famous Irish badass thug everyone was scared of.2015, Colin Quinn, The Coloring Book: A Comedian Solves Race Relations in America, New York, N.Y.: Grand Central Publishing, →ISBN

adjectiveHaving an extreme appearance, attitude, or behavior that is considered admirable.

  • That tough guy looks badass.
  • It's badass." It took me only half a second to see that he was serious.2011, Laura Dave, chapter 14, in The First Husband: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN; republished New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books...
  • She's dressed in badass black and the barest amount of chrome that is acceptable.2012, James R. Tuck, chapter 4, in Spider’s Lullaby, New York, N.Y.: Kensington Publishing Corp., →ISBN

More sentences with badass

  • He acts like a total badass, but he's really just a marshmallow once you get to know him.From the entry marshmallow
  • I came looking to replace him, if you're still a badass.2014, Nic Pizzolatto, 42:30 from the start, in True Detective, season 1, episode 4, spoken by Ginger (Joseph Sikora). From the entry smokey
  • Mister responsible undercover government badass was the kid who ran with scissors!”2012, Scott Gesinger, Pleiades Rising, page 88. From the entry run with scissors
  • Should be a badass- used as comic relief.2026 March 26, TropicalPossum954, “the show would be nothing without him”, in reddit.com, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026. From the entry Gimli
  • I mean, for the love of the Force, he's a bigfoot with a gun; how come he's not the baddest badass in the Empire?2011 November, Helena Nash, "No. 179—Wussy Wookie", The Drink Tank, No. 300, p. 180. From the entry bigfoot
  • But when I turned pro, I knew I needed a really badass name, 'cuz it intimidates n00bs, who will disconnect just when they see me show up.2006 September, Jeff Green, quoting D3thf4art [pseudonym; Stanley Lipschitz], “Interview with a Pro Gamer”, in Jeff Green, editor…. From the entry weaksauce

Meaning of badass

  1. noun A belligerent or mean person; a person with an unpleasantly extreme appearance, attitudes, or behavior.
  2. noun A person considered impressive due to courage, skill, daring, audacity, and/or toughness.
  3. adjective Belligerent and troublesome.

Full definition of badass

Questions about badass in a sentence

How do you use badass in a sentence?
Badass is used as a noun and adjective. For example: “Don’t mess with that guy, he’s a real badass.”
What is a short sentence with badass?
“That tough guy looks badass.”
What does badass mean?
Badass means a belligerent or mean person; a person with an unpleasantly extreme appearance, attitudes, or behavior.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: badass (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use badass in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/badass. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.