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# ruffian

«ruffian» in Mova's school dictionary: **A rough, violent or lawless person, especially a man or a…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (a ruffian, ruffians)

### meaning for a pupil

A rough, violent or lawless person, especially a man or a boy who causes trouble. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

An old-fashioned word in stories and history: highwaymen, pirates and street gangs are ruffians. In The Wind in the Willows the stoats and weasels who take over Toad Hall are called ruffians, and Toad himself is called a ruffian by the court. Today grandparents use it half-jokingly for noisy boys.

### examples

- A gang of ruffians stopped the coach on the road. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/#x1)
- The weasels and stoats were a band of ruffians. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/#x2)
- «You young ruffians, get off my lawn!» shouted the old man. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/#x3)
- The magistrate called Toad a hardened ruffian. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/#x4)
- Ruffians attacked travellers in the Middle Ages. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/#x5)
- The pirates were cruel ruffians. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/#x6)
- The ruffians were appropriately named Rawbones and Woudkill. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/#x7)

### note

Plural: ruffians. Adjective: ruffianly (rare). Do not confuse with «ruffle» (to mess up hair or feathers).

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «ruffian» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/ruffian/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.