bravoes

[21] I might also mention the sentiment of Count Conigsmarck, who allowed, that the barbarous assassination of Mr. Thynne by his bravoes was a slain on his blood, but such a one as a good action in the wars, or a lodging on a counterscarp, would easily wash out.

The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Scott, Walter, Sir 1882

[21] I might also mention the sentiment of Count Conigsmarck, who allowed, that the barbarous assassination of Mr. Thynne by his bravoes was a slain on his blood, but such a one as a good action in the wars, or a lodging on a counterscarp, would easily wash out.

The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, Volume 1 With a Life of the Author Walter Scott 1801

Laws came down like hail; crimes were recounted and particularized with minute prolixity; penalties were absurdly exorbitant; and if that were not enough, capable of augmentation in almost every case, at the will of the legislator himself and of a hundred executives; the forms of procedure studied only how to liberate the judge from every impediment in the way of passing a sentence of condemnation; the sketches we have given of the proclamations against the bravoes are a feeble but true index of this.

Chapter I 1909

Crew passes on without a stagger; East is hurled forward by the shock, and plunges on his shoulder, as if he would bury himself in the ground; but the ball rises straight into the air, and falls behind Crew's back, while the "bravoes" of the School-house attest the pluckiest charge of all that hard-fought day.

Tom Brown's Schooldays Hughes, Thomas, 1822-1896 1971

Here we interject a perfect bravura of "bravoes," and, stepping boldly up to the front, demand of Professor Bastian to "throw up the sponge," take a back seat, and there -- formulate us a new definition of "life."

Life: Its True Genesis R. W. Wright

"bravoes," although how Pope was to know of this meeting was, according to Curll, "the cream of the jest."

The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1 Alexander Pope 1716

Joe-Jim's bravoes checked their flight and they looked doubtfully at their master.

Destiny Narrowly Avoided 2010

The three bravoes obeyed; Bobo was too loaded down with Ertz to constitute a problem in discipline.

Destiny Narrowly Avoided 2010

Neither did his frank and manly deportment, though indicating a total indifference to danger, bear the least resemblance to that of the bravoes or swashbucklers of the day, amongst whom Henry was sometimes unjustly ranked by those who imputed the frays in which he was so often engaged to a quarrelsome and violent temper, resting upon a consciousness of his personal strength and knowledge of his weapon.

The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

Thinkest thou there has been no offensive assumption in laving aside the character of a mother and a wife, and adopting that of one of those brain-sick female fools, who, like the bravoes of the other sex, sacrifice every thing that is honourable or useful to a frantic and insane affectation of courage?

Count Robert of Paris 2008