Ruffian

Examples

• It was the work of this brutal ruffian whom he had the misfortune to employ. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
• Little as I know of the law, I am certain that it can protect a woman from such treatment as that ruffian has inflicted on you to-day. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
• Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian's rouge. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
• Tall and muscular as I was in form, I must have looked like, what indeed I was, the merest ruffian that ever trod the earth. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
• Take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian! Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
• What we pay rates and taxes for I don't know, when any ruffian can come in and break one's goods. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
• None of your mistering,' replied the ruffian; 'you always mean mischief when you come that. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
• It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
• And cannot the ruffian, the brutal, the debased, by slave law, own just as many slaves as the best and purest? Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
• Sikes knew too much, and his ruffian taunts had not galled Fagin the less, because the wounds were hidden. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
• Then he raised his revolver and covered the young ruffian, who was advancing upon him with his dangerous riding-crop swinging in his hand. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
• Her voice once drowned by the shout of ruffian defiance, and I shall be full of impulses to resist and quell. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
• I pity the ruffian who crosses you, my wild man, when I take you to Paris. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
• The kindly, charitable, good old governor--how could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian! Arthur Conan Doyle. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
• To-morrow the ruffian had declared that I should die. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
• The historian says: Ruffians, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and inflicted upon him a terrible and nameless mutilation. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
• How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him? Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
• Ye have sufficient ruffians of your own, said De Bracy; not one of mine shall budge on such an errand. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
• And I don't believe in any pay to make amends for bringing a lot of ruffians to trample your crops. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
• The crew were a set of ruffians, specially picked for the job. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
• The ruffians tore him shrieking out of her arms, and have never allowed him to see her. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
• I cannot hear unmoved that ruffians have laid in wait for him, and shot him down, like some wild beast from behind a wall. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
• Several times last night, when the supernumeraries entered the arena to drag out the bodies, the young ruffians in the gallery shouted, Supe! Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
• I am seeking the last resting place of those ruffians. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.

Checked by Judith