toughies

noun

plural of toughie
as in thugs
a violent, brutal person who is often a member of an organized gang after numerous suspensions, the school toughies were finally expelled for gang activities on campus

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 toughies Other toughies are at the not-so-soft Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 13, the revenge trip to New England in Week 15 and the Philadelphia Eagles at Highmark Stadium in Week 17. — Tim Graham, New York Times, 16 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for toughies
  1. thugs
  2. villains
  3. criminals
  4. bandits
  5. gangsters
  6. toughs
  7. pirates
  8. assassins
Noun
  • 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
Definition of thugs
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
  • That gives criminals several ways to target you, even when your Paidwork balance was nearly empty.
    — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 1 Aug. 2026
  • Cyber criminals are using highly convincing counterfeit audio, video, and identity fabrications as tools in ways that conventional detection methods will fail to identify.
    — Chuck Brooks, Forbes.com, 31 July 2026
Definition of criminals
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
  • 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
  • In that version, the character is played by Joe Don Baker, the great character actor known for playing toughs in films like Walking Tall (1973) and Fletch (1985).
    — Britt Hayes, Entertainment Weekly, 5 June 2026
  • So, while Rue and Maddy are confabbing over milkshakes in a diner, Alamo sends Rue off for a drive with his two toughs, G (Marshawn Lynch) and the icy Bishop (Darrell Britt-Gibson).
    — Marlow Stern, Variety, 11 May 2026
Definition of toughs
Noun
  • The hijacking is the latest in a series of attacks attributed to Somali pirates, whose activities have resurfaced in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean after years of relative inactivity.
    — Omar Faruk, Los Angeles Times, 20 July 2026
  • But then a banquet meal goes horribly awry, and pirates sink the ship.
    — K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 17 July 2026
Definition of pirates
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

Browse Nearby Words

toughie
toughies
toughing it out
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Cite this Entry

“Toughies.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/toughies. Accessed 8 Aug. 2026.

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