as in thug
a violent, brutal person who is often a member of an organized gang
sent over a couple of hulking plug-uglies to rough up the store owner
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for plug-ugly
Noun
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Image In so many ways, Jan. 6 had become part of his brand — a brand in which an attack on the symbol of American democracy became a defense of that same democracy: a blow against political thugs and closet communists, deep-state plots and an unjust justice system.—
Dan Barry,
New York Times,
5 Jan. 2025 -
The investigation leads Cole into an ugly world of red-neck thugs and disappeared girls.—
Sandra Dallas,
The Denver Post,
2 Feb. 2025
Noun
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This shortcoming extends to its assortment of villains who, despite including celebrity appearances like AEW wrestler Samoa Joe, fail to leave a memorable impression beyond being yet another obstacle on the way to the end credits.—
Isaiah Colbert,
Rolling Stone,
18 Feb. 2025
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Ant-Man met a villain named Kang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania who battled multiple versions of himself from different timelines.—
Eliana Dockterman,
TIME,
14 Feb. 2025
Noun
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In her ethnographic study of Jamaican gangs, Jaffe argues against seeing the neighborhood strongmen—or dons—as primarily violent, exploitative gangsters.—
Foreign Affairs,
Foreign Affairs,
25 Feb. 2025
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Lives are literally on the line in Vivian Qu’s genre hybrid Girls on Wire, a surprisingly gritty study of people left behind or living in the margins that fuses gangster realism with social drama and leavens both with a dash of unexpected humor.—
Damon Wise,
Deadline,
18 Feb. 2025
Noun
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Williamson spends the entire movie moving from one L.A. locale and subculture to another, meeting a motley crew of criminals rich, scrappy, and everything in between, along the way.—
Jim Hemphill,
IndieWire,
24 Feb. 2025
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Might be important later: the criminal was able to gain entrance to the White Lotus property when Valentin pulls up on his motorcycle to the security gate to chat with Gaitok, at the exact moment a random SUV containing the thief sails through.—
Dan Heching,
CNN,
24 Feb. 2025
Noun
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Some of the pirates were already waiting there in speedboats.—
Soham Mitra, Lou Robinson and Patrick Gallagher,
CNN,
22 Feb. 2025
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Ozzy Osbourne could've been a pirate — and wife Sharon still regrets not letting him.—
Marina Watts,
People.com,
19 Feb. 2025
Noun
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The pint-sized assassin pulls a gun out of her fuzzy heart throw pillow and gets to work.—
Kimberly Roots,
TVLine,
18 Feb. 2025
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Polls show skepticism remains about lone assassin theory The Justice Department and other federal government entities have reaffirmed conclusions that Oswald was solely responsible for the killing of the former president.—
Marc Ramirez,
USA TODAY,
13 Feb. 2025
Noun
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When Jennifer Lawrence isn’t full-frontally beating the bejesus out of insouciant hoodlums, that is.—
Charles Bramesco,
Vulture,
10 Feb. 2025
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However, their dreams are threatened by the hoodlums in the Riverbottom Gang.—
EW.com,
EW.com,
30 Nov. 2024
Noun
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Robbery by bandits and natural disasters posed constant threats.—
Abdo Riani,
Forbes,
23 Jan. 2025
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Those who bought Amazon in 1998, for example, or Tesla in 2012, or Nvidia in 2020 correctly foresaw the respective explosions of online shopping, EVs, and the AI revolution—and made out like bandits.—
Prarthana Prakash,
Fortune,
26 Nov. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Plug-ugly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/plug-ugly. Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
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