What is "ruffians"

Usage examples of "ruffians".

Both sides had severe losses and as their numbers were diminished, they were replaced by the eager, available ruffians waiting in Cimarron for the opportunity to get paid for killing each other.

Jack about his business by literal force of arms, and entered into an alliance with Ned Higgs, a notorious swashbuckler, the captain of a gang of young ruffians who at this date were giving much trouble to the Clerkenwell police.

From the boardwalks, hung-over ruffians lounged, eyeing the populace, making obnoxious cat-calls at the women, and generally being a nuisance.

I had already begun to have visions of being herded into some gloomy chamber with a crowd of insolent ruffians, hastily sworn in, and then, heaven knows what.

Shoreditch, for she had been describing a foul slum of wretched tenements, reeking with disagreeable odors and inhabited by shoplifters, thieves and ruffians of the lowest type.

It was certain that a gang of ruffians was prowling about the country, and though there was no cause for actual fear, it was well to be ready for whatever might happen.

Davidson, who is a man of courage, if ever there was one, that his psychology was not known to the world at large, and that to this particular lot of ruffians, who judged him by his appearance, he appeared an unsuspicious, inoffensive, soft creature, as he passed again through the room, his hands full of various objects and parcels destined for the sick boy.