Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The character, habits, or manners of ruffians.

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

  • noun The behaviour of a ruffian.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun violent lawless behavior

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ruffian +‎ -ism

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Examples

  • It was what he wanted to do — to bring out the innate ruffianism of this man he did not like.

    Chapter 37 2010

  • The increasing anxiety of the decreasing white majority finds its woeful expression in bigotry and ruffianism all the way up even to Congress.

    Wilson says no more apologies for outburst against president 2009

  • This was a special body raised by the railways and colliery owners to supplement the efforts of the ordinary civil police, who were perfectly helpless in the face of the organized ruffianism which terrorized the district.

    Chennai 2010

  • A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements.

    Nineteen Eighty-four 2008

  • A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements.

    Nineteen Eighty-four 2008

  • It is an excellent thing for ruffianism and an admirable thing for the police to be on such intimate juggling terms with the night.

    Les Miserables 2008

  • All civilized peoples offer this detail to the admiration of the thinker; war; now, war, civilized war, exhausts and sums up all the forms of ruffianism, from the brigandage of the Trabuceros in the gorges of Mont Jaxa to the marauding of the Comanche Indians in the Doubtful Pass.

    Les Miserables 2008

  • His life, without doubt, was deeply stained with crimes and vices, and his reputation for ruffianism was a deserved one.

    A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains 2007

  • His fame for violence and ruffianism preceded him into

    A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains 2007

  • A story was current of a man having ridden through Truckee two evenings before with a chopped-up human body in a sack behind the saddle, and hosts of stories of ruffianism are located there, rightly or wrongly.

    A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains 2007

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