ruffians

Suppose an epidemic of garroting breaks out in the city of Philadelphia, as it did in the city of London a very few years ago; to tell me that I am to walk the streets of this city at night without any protection whatever from ruffians, is to state something to which I will never agree.

The Volokh Conspiracy » The Right to Carry Concealed Guns Debate: Pretty Similar in 1872 and in 2010 2010

So-called ruffians or camp followers of the crusaders managed to breach the town walls.

Bloodlust Russell Jacoby 2011

So-called ruffians or camp followers of the crusaders managed to breach the town walls.

Bloodlust Russell Jacoby 2011

The approaching sounds called the ruffians from the other part of the chamber.

The Mysteries of Udolpho 2004

The approaching sounds called the ruffians from the other part of the chamber.

The Mysteries of Udolpho Ann Ward Radcliffe 1793

Reads "ruffians" in the Cleave edition (London, 1835). close window

Annotations To The Text of _Wat Tyler_ 2007

The four-by-four "ruffians" who insist on driving their vehicles across beaches, destroying fragile ecosystems in the process, have no place in South Africa, according to Environment Minister Valli

ANC Daily News Briefing 2002

At one stage, Mr Mandela stopped his address to remonstrate with some "ruffians" and at another point he complained about the rough manner in which marshals handled the crowd.

ANC Daily News Briefing 1994

You have told us we have no right to usurp Kansas, - no right to murder "Free State men," and no right to sustain there, a set of "ruffians" to make Kansas a slave State.

Twenty-two years a slave, and forty years a freeman--, 1793-1860 1857

Expressing his indignation, he asked that the "ruffians" be taken into custody, and one of those who had hissed was arrested, but, on penitently expressing his regret, he was discharged.

Perley's Reminiscences, v. 1-2 of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis Benjamin Perley Poore 1853