How to Use hoodlum in a Sentence
hoodlum
noun-
Street hoodlums threw sticks at him and bombed his front porch with bricks.
—Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun, 23 July 2023
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Reams said the cook had a helper, nicknamed a hoodlum, who did the heavy lifting and chores.
—Vincent T. Davis, ExpressNews.com, 15 Feb. 2020
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These two hoodlums deserve to be put away for a very long time.
—Letter Writers, Twin Cities, 6 Feb. 2017
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He's jumped by a bunch of teen hoodlums who steal his sign and give him a beating in an alley.
—David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 31 Aug. 2019
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But once arrested, they were portrayed by the press as a gang of hoodlums.
—San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 June 2019
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How was this cutup going to convince as a creature of the night, striking fear in the heart of hoodlums?
—Vulture, 17 June 2023
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How was this cutup going to convince as a creature of the night, striking fear in the heart of hoodlums?
—Vulture, 25 Aug. 2023
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Frankie and his friends, a group of young Coney Island hoodlums without much to do, spend their evenings trolling the boardwalk for babes and bud.
—Katie Walsh, chicagotribune.com, 24 Aug. 2017
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Hernández de Cruceño, however, was new in town, and had the look of a malandro, or hoodlum.
—Seth Harp, Harper's Magazine, 27 Apr. 2020
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The issue is not too many guns; the issue is too many thugs, hoodlums and savage criminals on our streets.
—Nbc Universal, NBC News, 16 Apr. 2023
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Bennett was once shot and wounded in a confrontation with a hoodlum.
—Jack Kresnak, Detroit Free Press, 28 Jan. 2024
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The issue is too many thugs, hoodlums and savage criminals on our street.
—CBS News, 16 Apr. 2023
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That's a bunch of hoodlums getting drunk in a bunk bed situation.
—Dalton Ross, EW.com, 21 Feb. 2024
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In one scene the country-music legend, who portrayed a hoodlum named Johnny Cabot, grabbed Ron and held him hostage.
—Patrick J. Kiger, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2021
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And, of course, there’s Mark Wahlberg, an ace actor who parlayed his Calvin-Klein-hoodlum-of-rap image into true movie stardom.
—Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 28 Nov. 2021
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There was plenty to loathe about certain members of the band of criminals who surrounded our hoodlum-in-chief.
—John R. MacArthur, Harper’s Magazine , 7 Dec. 2021
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Instead of the track pants and leather jackets that local hoodlums wore to school, their look was a kind of ’50s retro: plaid blazers and polka-dot ties, slacks with suspenders, pressed white shirts, long hair slicked back with too much gel.
—Simon Shuster, TIME, 4 Jan. 2024
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The duo visit the musty apartment of a reclusive language tutor, the elegant suite of a physicist in the employ of the U.S. government, and the shadowy ghetto lair of a brutal young hoodlum.
—Tom Nolan, WSJ, 30 Nov. 2018
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For years, Gentile was known to but mostly ignored by FBI and state police mob investigators, who wrote him off as a nickel and dime hoodlum.
—Edmund H. Mahony, courant.com, 22 Sep. 2021
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A month before the stabbing, police had banged on Alfred Kiefer’s front door in Southeast Portland, seeking to arrest the 35-year-old hoodlum on extortion charges.
—oregonlive, 3 Dec. 2019
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On another, hoodlums ran through the crowd, whacking protesters with plastic chairs.
—Drew Hinshaw, WSJ, 24 Dec. 2017
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Participants will ride on a bus to view the exteriors of 14 Oak Park and River Forest houses once owned by major hoodlums.
—Myrna Petlicki, chicagotribune.com, 26 June 2018
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There have been some teething problems: Vague gossip about injuries, social media gripes from pedestrians about rude young scooter hoodlums, complaints about scofflaws not obeying the rules of the road.
—al, 10 Jan. 2020
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In the show — which Ferrante, wrote, produced, and presented — the onetime hoodlum used his street credentials to gain superb access to imprisoned gang members around the world.
—Joseph Hincks, Time, 11 Aug. 2017
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The centerpiece of Laurence Graff’s display window, the stone was famous before the Chicago hoodlums committed what seemed a perfect crime.
—Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune, 12 Mar. 2023
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Thankfully, nobody was hurt, but had the homeowners arrived minutes earlier or had the hoodlums opted to attack them, the outcome could have been much worse.
—Paul Jenkins, Anchorage Daily News, 20 Jan. 2018
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The boys’ boredom and anxiety is offset by a visit from their Uncle Louie, a low-level hoodlum who is on the run after stealing from a mobster named Hollywood Harry.
—courant.com, 31 Mar. 2022
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Also tempting death-by-drug-bear: a pair of kids cutting school and a concerned mother in pursuit, a park ranger and a Smokey Bear-loving wildlife man, and a gang of colorfully dressed hoodlums who patrol the woods stabbing people for loot.
—WIRED, 24 Feb. 2023
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Get our daily newsletter Crime was once solid ground for Tories, who mocked liberal opponents for their soft treatment of hoodlums.
—The Economist, 7 Nov. 2019
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The regrettable attack on Nat (King) Cole in Birmingham by a band of hoodlums redounds to the everlasting discredit of those who foster race prejudice.
—AL.com, 11 Jan. 2018
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hoodlum.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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