Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun historical (US) A violence-prone man who has had run-ins with the law; especially one from the Old West days of U.S. history.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

bad + man

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Examples

  • He began to wish that his property might be attacked, feeling secure in his alertness, thinking that an over bold "badman" might come suddenly to the end of his depredations here.

    Six Feet Four Jackson Gregory 1912

  • Steve 'badman' Hessel (Community Relations Manager):

    Splash Damage 2010

  • Steve 'badman' Hessel (Community Relations Manager):

    Splash Damage 2010

  • Steve 'badman' Hessel (Community Relations Manager):

    Splash Damage 2010

  • Steve 'badman' Hessel (Community Relations Manager):

    Splash Damage 2009

  • The protagonists of these films violated a number of cultural taboos in the way they embodied the "badman" ethos-a mode of self-presentation

    NewBlackMan 2009

  • Does this sound a little like "fear mongering"? badman

    New ad urges Obama to 'Slow Down' on health care 2009

  • The worst of the lot was Sam Brown, a Texas-born badman who literally cut a broad swathe through Texas, California, and Nevada—his favorite weapon was the bowie knife—leaving a reputed sixteen victims in his wake.

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • By the time Sam sat down to share a cup of coffee with the famous badman at Rocky Ridge Station, he had comically inflated the real Slade into an outsized bogeyman for the purposes of underlining their argument over a last cup of coffee.

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • A badman named Jack Harris, passing by on horseback, stopped to welcome them to the city.

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

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