thug
/θʌɡ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/θɐɡ/
thug noun: a person who is a member of a gang or criminal organization.
Noun
thug (plural thugs)
- A person who is a member of a gang or criminal organization.
- A violent, aggressive, or truculent person.
- They call you a land of license—free but to thug and thief.1915, Cale Young Rice, “My Country”, in Collected Plays and Poems, page 342
- Every summer brought the prospect of the dragonships snaking their way upriver, each vessel filled with thirty or more rapacious thugs.1999, Robert Lacey, Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium, London: Abacus, published 2000, page 77
- A criminal that extorts people.
- A person who use intimidation to coerce others.
- One of a band of assassins formerly active in northern India who worshipped Kali and sacrificed their victims to her.
- Synonyms:
- phansigar
- One who, usually as a result of social disadvantage, has turned to committing crimes (e.g. selling drugs, robbery, assault, etc.) to make a living; a gangsta.
- An overvigorous plant that spreads and dominates the flowerbed.
- A wooden bat used in the game of miniten, fitting around the player's hand.
Verb
thug (third-person singular simple present thugs, present participle thugging, simple past and past participle thugged)
- To commit acts of thuggery, to live the life of a thug, to menace, to commit crime.
- Mr. Ingleby ascertained at the office—after threading the mazes of passage and staircase as though he expected momently to be Thugged—that his nephew had not yet come.1854, My Ducats and My Daughter, volume II, page 247
- The report then records the arrest of the whole force of the union paper, the Victor Record, the forced resignation of many other civil officers in the Cripple Creek district who were in sympathy with the miners, […] the severe thugging of many of the well-known labor organizers,1968, Harry Wellington Laidler, Boycotts and the Labor Struggle, page 302
- (often with out) To appear as a thug; to dress and act in a manner reminiscent of a thug.
- I don’t thug out, but I’m not Wall Street, either. Russell Simmons and Puffy have clothes for this look in the affordable range.2003 April, Dorian Missick, quotee, “Clothesline: Dorian Missick”, in Playboy Magazine, page 44
- Oh. Besides Allen Iverson, basketball players don’t be thugged out enough for me. I like me a roughneck.2006, Katina King, Ride Wit’ Me, page 11
thug meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
thug in Hindi
- someone who treats others violently or roughly
- डाकू ḍākū, ठग ṭhag, टपोरी ṭaporī, मुस्टंडा musṭaṇḍā
- a member of the Thuggee band of assassins
- ठग ṭhag
thug in Tamil
- someone who treats others violently or roughly
- கேடி kēṭi
thug in Urdu
- someone who treats others violently or roughly
- ڈاکو ḍākū, ٹھگ ṭhag
- a member of the Thuggee band of assassins
- ٹھگ ṭhag
thug in Bengali
- someone who treats others violently or roughly
- ঠগ ṭhog, টেঁটন ṭẽṭon
- a member of the Thuggee band of assassins
- ঠগ ṭhog
More languagesFewer languages
- thug in Malayalam
- പോക്കിരി pōkkiri, കൂതറ kūtaṟa, ചട്ടമ്പി caṭṭampi
- thug in Kannada
- ಕೊಲೆಗಡುಕ kolegaḍuka, ಕೊಲೆಗಾರ kolegāra
- thug in Punjabi
- بدمعاش badmaʻāś
- thug in Nepali
- ठग
- thug in Arabic
- بَلْطَجِيّ balṭajiyy
- thug in Persian
- خلاف کار xalâf kâr, اوباش owbâš, اراذل arâzel, گانگستر gângester
- thug in Thai
- นักเลงโต nák-leeng-dtoo, นักเลง nák-leeng
- thug in Vietnamese
- du côn
Examples of thug in a sentence
- Leah handed me her thug as I walked past her.2021, Anna Durand, Natural Satisfaction:
- Another story about the young American motor-cycle hoodlum gangs: raping, thugging and robbing their way along the roads.1972, F. Maurice Speed, Film Review, page 219:
- Ones that don’t just go on about having a big dick, thugging and bashing on some girl.2017, Todd Dedman, quoting research participant ‘Luke’, Purists and Peripherals: Hip-hop and Grime Subcultures, page 169:
Synonyms of thug
Forms of thug
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | thugs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | thugs |
| present participle | thugging |
| past participle | thugged |
| past | thugged |
Origin of thug
Borrowed from Hindustani ठग (ṭhag) / ٹھگ (ṭhag, “swindler, fraud, cheat”), further derived from Prakrit 𑀞𑀕 (ṭhaga), of uncertain origin. See there for more. Thuggee was a network of gangs in India from the 17th century to the 19th century who robbed and murdered travellers, often by strangling. During British Imperial rule of India, many Indian words passed into common English, and by 1810 thug referred to a member of these Indian gangs. The sense was adopted more generally as "ruffian, cutthroat, and cruel robber" by 1839. Perhaps related to English thatch, deck.
Words formed from thug
Phrases with thug
Words that rhyme with thug
23 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about thug
- What does thug mean?
- Thug means a person who is a member of a gang or criminal organization.
- What is thug in Hindi?
- Thug in Hindi is डाकू (ḍākū), ठग (ṭhag), टपोरी (ṭaporī). See Thug meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use thug in a sentence?
- Leah handed me her thug as I walked past her.
- What part of speech is thug?
- Thug can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce thug?
- Thug is pronounced /θʌɡ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of thug?
- The plural of thug is thugs.
Words near thug in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: thug (page history and authors); കൂതറ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); بدمعاش (Punjabi) (page history and authors); thug (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-thug.wav.
Cite this entry: “thug.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thug. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.