as in thug
a violent, brutal person who is often a member of an organized gang
the complaint that English football has been taken over by the yobs, who make the stadiums unfit for families
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of yob
There’s certainly little warmth surrounding the past here, beginning with an eerie, cryptic prologue, set in 1973, that sees a rural wedding crashed by yobs in sinister, medieval-looking straw masks, followed by yellowing newspaper headlines that puzzle over the bride’s subsequent disappearance.
—
Guy Lodge, Variety, 13 Aug. 2024
Johnson has more to worry about than just random yobs disrupting the call.
—Mark Hachman, PCWorld, 31 Mar. 2020
But these folk will not be your random yobs brought in to gawp.
—William Booth, Washington Post, 2 Mar. 2018
After the yobs fled, the Sun reported, Cumberbatch hugged the deliveryman from Deliveroo, a U.K. food-delivery service.
—The Washington Post, NOLA.com, 2 June 2018
Guy Lodge, Variety, 13 Aug. 2024
Johnson has more to worry about than just random yobs disrupting the call.
—Mark Hachman, PCWorld, 31 Mar. 2020
But these folk will not be your random yobs brought in to gawp.
—William Booth, Washington Post, 2 Mar. 2018
After the yobs fled, the Sun reported, Cumberbatch hugged the deliveryman from Deliveroo, a U.K. food-delivery service.
—The Washington Post, NOLA.com, 2 June 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for yob
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
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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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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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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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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
Cite this Entry
“Yob.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/yob. Accessed 3 Mar. 2025.
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