thugs

noun

plural of thug
as in criminals
a violent, brutal person who is often a member of an organized gang the Mob boss regularly sent his thugs after people who were slow to pay their debts

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of thugs Shortly after his big win, he’s attacked by two thugs in a parking garage. — Ben Travers, IndieWire, 30 July 2026 The night of the title fight, Duke is attacked by two thugs who smash his hand with a hammer and, in the ensuing chaos, kill somebody close to him. — Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 30 July 2026 In the big screen take of Clayface, Hagen is a matinee idol on the rise, but his face gets slashed by thugs. — Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 23 July 2026 Threatening to limit mail-in voting, adding ridiculous ID requirements, or staging thugs at polling places are other possible ways to convince you to stay home. — Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 6 July 2026 To be sure, the thugs of Hamas and Hezbollah committed a horrific massacre of young Jewish civilians enjoying a music festival on October 7, 2023. — Dp Opinion, Denver Post, 6 July 2026 The actions of these thugs, who should be imprisoned for a long while, is the cause of denying real Knicks fans the chance to watch the game communally. — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 10 June 2026 People have committed suicide because a bunch of thugs went after them. — NBC news, 7 June 2026 The masked thugs deposit a tearful middle-aged woman in front of Bass, Newsom, and Harris. — Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 12 May 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for thugs
  1. criminals
  2. gangsters
  3. villains
  4. bandits
  5. assassins
  6. hoodlums
  7. thieves
  8. pirates
Noun
  • North Carolina politician says Democrats are coddling criminals Records also list a September 2025 simple-assault charge and a March 2025 charge of assault on a female.
    — Greg Wehner, FOXNews.com, 8 Aug. 2026
  • Even if Anna Pigeon carries a gun with cuffs, as real-life law enforcement rangers do, there's much more to the job and character than chasing down criminals.
    — Bryan Alexander, USA Today, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of criminals
Noun
  • Badly in Love manages to break through because the cast of men and women looking for true love are from the Japanese yankii subculture—juvenile delinquents, motorcycle gangsters, troubled women, and more.
    — K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 31 July 2026
  • Remember all those fake memoirs from the early 2000s, by all those writers pretending to be addicts and gangsters and Holocaust survivors?
    — James Parker, The Atlantic, 20 July 2026
Definition of gangsters
Noun
  • Still, bonus points for casting Chukwudi Iwuji as the menacing High Evolutionary, one of the oddest and most unsettling Marvel villains in recent memory.
    — EW Staff, Entertainment Weekly, 3 Aug. 2026
  • This trend suggests a need for new, effective villains to balance the roster.
    — Alfred Konuwa, Forbes.com, 2 Aug. 2026
Definition of villains
Noun
  • Armed groups, known as bandits in Nigeria, regularly carry out raids and kidnappings for ransom in the northwest and north-central parts of the country.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 6 Aug. 2026
  • The area was wild and uninhabited, but the bandits moved through it with practiced ease.
    — Alexis Okeowo, New Yorker, 3 Aug. 2026
Definition of bandits
Noun
  • In November 2024, assassins on a motorcycle in the Pacific port city of Manzanaillo shot dead a rear admiral who was said to have blown the whistle on navy entanglement in fuel-smuggling.
    — Foreign Correspondent, Los Angeles Times, 3 Aug. 2026
  • The young women acted as underground assassins, seducing Nazi officers, luring them into the woods and killing them.
    — Emily Zemler, Rolling Stone, 28 July 2026
Definition of assassins
Noun
  • In the past decade, the leadership of the Kinahan organization has become rich and cosmopolitan, and their life styles have started to resemble those of international businessmen more than of street hoodlums.
    — Ed Caesar, New Yorker, 30 Apr. 2026
  • The first pictures McCullin took were of hoodlums and down-and-outs, subjects that reflected his own hardscrabble background.
    — Andrew Pulver, Air Mail, 31 Jan. 2026
Definition of hoodlums
Noun
  • Police told local news outlets that thieves used one of the company trucks to smash through the site’s security gate and then spent eight hours combing through the building.
    — Devorah Lauter, ARTnews.com, 7 Aug. 2026
  • The thieves reportedly gained access to the building by using a Lilli Petroli truck and tearing down a large iron entrance gate using a cable.
    — Theo Belci, Artforum, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of thieves
Noun
  • But the island was also a haven for outcasts and pirates and merchants, from across Europe and the Levant and beyond, who came to the Caribbean to seek their fortunes or to help grow the fortunes of others.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 5 Aug. 2026
  • The voyage started with 350 captives; almost all died or were kidnapped a second time by pirates.
    — USA Today, USA Today, 4 Aug. 2026
Definition of pirates

Browse Nearby Words

thug
thugs
thumb
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Cite this Entry

“Thugs.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/thugs. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.

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