as in vulgar
lacking in refinement or good taste
their roughneck antics were amusing only if you were as drunk as they were
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in thug
a violent, brutal person who is often a member of an organized gang
a group of roughnecks like to hang out at the roadhouse and harass people
Synonyms & Similar Words
Examples Sentences
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Recent Examples of roughneck
David Fear, Rolling Stone, 22 May 2024
Trey Smoak’s roughneck monitor lizard was out of his sight for about 10 minutes Friday when the Crowley resident went to put up groceries.
—Harriet Ramos, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 Feb. 2024
Bob Verini, Variety, 14 June 2024
Born in Clinton, Okla., and raised in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City, Keith worked as a roughneck in the oil fields, then played as a semiprofessional football player before kicking off his music career.
—Jessica Schladebeck, New York Daily News, 6 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for roughneck 
Adjective
That sequence feels like it might have been made by one of those roughneck filmmakers in the early days of Hollywood, just hauling a lot of equipment and stuntmen out to the desert and risking their lives to make some crazed, truly dangerous action set piece.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 22 May 2024
Trey Smoak’s roughneck monitor lizard was out of his sight for about 10 minutes Friday when the Crowley resident went to put up groceries.
—Harriet Ramos, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 Feb. 2024
Noun
The suave Powell adds just the right touch of roughneck to make Gatsby ever more the outsider.
—Bob Verini, Variety, 14 June 2024
Born in Clinton, Okla., and raised in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City, Keith worked as a roughneck in the oil fields, then played as a semiprofessional football player before kicking off his music career.
—Jessica Schladebeck, New York Daily News, 6 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for roughneck
Recent Examples of Synonyms for roughneck
Adjective
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The vast majority of females in the book are described with vulgar disrespect by the various characters and the narrator.Brittany Wallman, Miami Herald, 2 Jan. 2025
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There is no excuse and no rationalization for a vulgar, inhumane act that senselessly took a life.David Faris, Newsweek, 27 Dec. 2024
Noun
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The proximate cause of the war crimes chronicled in Han’s novels is South Korea’s succession of authoritarian governments, their soldiers and police; on Jeju Island, these were joined by gangs of right-wing thugs.Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 14 Jan. 2025
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Like Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Assad will be remembered as a thug who left his country on the brink of state failure.Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 10 Jan. 2025
Adjective
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Crass Words Any crass or overt mention of bodily functions, particularly those involved with reproduction—human, animal, or botanical.Valerie Fraser Luesse, Southern Living, 17 Oct. 2024
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In 2013, Pearson’s state exams featured crass, commercial product placements as well as reading passages lifted from Pearson textbooks.Kemala Karmen, New York Daily News, 18 Dec. 2024
Noun
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His family told the local press that the man responsible for his death was a gangster from a rival group who had been living in exile in South Africa.Matthew Bremner, Rolling Stone, 5 Jan. 2025
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The group’s chairman is John Chan, a former Chinatown gangster convicted of human trafficking and drug smuggling charges in the mid-2000s who has since become influential in New York politics.Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News, 4 Jan. 2025
Adjective
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Less than one day into 2025, the superstar has already punched in with one of her characteristic comebacks, shutting down a troll who demanded new music and called her a rude name on Instagram Wednesday (Jan. 1).Hannah Dailey, Billboard, 2 Jan. 2025
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Your relative needs to stop running roughshod over you or risk being thought rude.R. Eric Thomas, The Mercury News, 27 Dec. 2024
Noun
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Other potential responses focus on the perpetrators rather than the puppeteers, prosecuting the petty criminals who carry out acts of sabotage or, in the Baltic Sea, boarding and impounding the offending vessel, as Finland did recently, and following up with a court case.Tamar Jacoby, Forbes, 7 Jan. 2025
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In her petition, Conley wrote that deploying CHP officers and Solano County sheriff's deputies to Vallejo could help address crime, serve as a deterrent to potential criminals and provide support to an overworked police force.Louis Casiano, Fox News, 6 Jan. 2025
Adjective
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Goldman Sachs estimates that the vessels targeted by the sanctions amounted to 25% of Russia’s energy exports, with the majority being crude oil.Lee Ying Shan, CNBC, 12 Jan. 2025
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With 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard, it had been struck and later sabotaged with explosives by the Houthis as part of their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.JON GAMBRELL THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, arkansasonline.com, 11 Jan. 2025
Noun
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Also tossed in are picturesque but gratuitous use of famous tourist landmarks as background, near-superheroic training montages, credible intimate character dynamics, a ruthless villain (Johan Heldenbergh as Vanaken) and action that in the home stretch goes absurdly over-the-top.Dennis Harvey, Variety, 13 Jan. 2025
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And though Young and (especially) the perpetrators of the massacre are clearly the villains of the piece, their past history at least partly explains their choices.Keith Phipps, Vulture, 10 Jan. 2025
Thesaurus Entries Near roughneck
Cite this Entry
“Roughneck.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/roughneck. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
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