What's the difference between assassin and thug?

Assassin


Definition:

  • (n.) One who kills, or attempts to kill, by surprise or secret assault; one who treacherously murders any one unprepared for defense.
  • (v. t.) To assassinate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She was not aware that it was an assassination attempt by alleged foreign agents.” If at least one of the women thought the killing was part of an elaborate prank, it might explain the “LOL” message emblazoned in large letters one of the killers t-shirts.
  • (2) She read geography at Oxford, where Benazir Bhutto (a future prime minister of Pakistan, assassinated in 2007) introduced May to her future husband, Philip May: "I hate to say this, but it was at an Oxford University Conservative Association disco… this is wild stuff.
  • (3) When Martin Luther King was assassinated, they sent state troopers to my high school in east St Louis.
  • (4) Contrary to the claims of some commentators, such as Steve Vladeck , it is impossible to argue reasonably that the memo imposed a requirement of "infeasibility of capture" on Obama's assassination power.
  • (5) He was indicted on weapons charges and accused of plotting robberies and the assassination of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s founder.
  • (6) Sadly, the Jewish fanatic who assassinated Rabin in 1995 achieved his broader aim of derailing the peace train.
  • (7) The 25-year-old student is adamant that her mother, Berta Cáceres Flores, will not become just one more Honduran environmental activist whose work was cut short by their assassination.
  • (8) As well as George Dyer, there was the murderer Perry Smith in the Truman Capote story Infamous, the hot-headed mobster child-killer in Road To Perdition, the brooding Ted Hughes in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sylvia biopic and a belligerent Mossad assassin in Steven Spielberg’s Munich.
  • (9) Compaoré was 36 when he seized power in a coup in which Thomas Sankara, his former friend and one of Africa’s most revered leaders, was ousted and assassinated.
  • (10) The surprise return of Saleh last month, after recovering in Saudi Arabia from an assassination attempt, has plunged the country into deeper uncertainty and sharpened the differences between pro- and anti-government camps.
  • (11) The attacks had clear echoes of the unsolved assassination in January this year of one of their colleagues, particle physicist Masoud Alimohammadi.
  • (12) The exposure of unsavoury candidates, allegations of racism and attempts at character assassination of Nigel Farage can be traced to Lynton Crosby , the architect of Conservative strategy who is a veteran of battles with the far-right Pauline Hanson in Australia.
  • (13) Its willingness to ignore diplomatic convention and use its Kuala Lumpur embassy to conduct an extraterritorial assassination will be seen as setting a dire precedent that cannot be allowed to stand.
  • (14) • An assassination attempt against Gennady Kernes, the wealthy mayor of Kharkiv, left him in "extremely serious but stable condition" in the hospital.
  • (15) I was told the Guardian had been too negative about Playboy in the past, and that they were also wary after a recent "trashing in the Sunday Times magazine – where Mr Hefner underwent a complete character assassination".
  • (16) Along with other recent events elsewhere in Guerrero – including the assassination of a party political boss in a well-known restaurant in Acapulco on Sunday and the murder of five people in one of the city’s poor barrios on Monday – the impression is growing that the state, long in a state of conflict, is being pushed over the edge.
  • (17) It explains the failure to unearth evidence of assassination: because state-appointed aviation experts conducted the investigation, their conclusion that it had been an accident proves that the state remains in the hands of the perpetrators (Law and Justice defence minister Antoni Macierewicz described their investigation as the greatest cover-up “in the history of the world”).
  • (18) Two years later Rabin was assassinated by a militant Israeli opponent of the peace process.
  • (19) The future James I resorted to them on several occasions in Scotland: in 1600, for instance, he had two alleged assassins pickled in whisky, vinegar and allspice, put on trial, and then mutilated.
  • (20) But these are only the latest of the clashes and atrocities that have engulfed Libya since Nato's "liberation": including bombings, assassinations, the kidnapping of the prime minister, the seizure of oil terminals by warlords, the explusion of 40,000 mainly black Libyans from their homes, and the killing of 46 protesters on the streets of Tripoli in one incident — ignored by the states that supposedly went to war to protect civilians.

Thug


Definition:

  • (n.) One of an association of robbers and murderers in India who practiced murder by stealthy approaches, and from religious motives. They have been nearly exterminated by the British government.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Thugs are distributing leaflets threatening to "wipe us out" and children in schools are being taught that the Rohingya are different.
  • (2) Mugabe and his Zanu-PF thugs, terrified of losing their empire, unleashed a carefully targeted anarchy at anyone who showed the slightest sign of dissent.
  • (3) "It took 21 days to get my hands on the brilliant Thug Life, whereas the book took me 77 days," he writes.
  • (4) But with a murderous thug ejected from power, who could object?
  • (5) Here's one entry: 1995: The government is full of jack-booted thugs in bucket helmets.
  • (6) In Ya’alon’s place is set to come a man routinely described as a thug, even if he did once serve as foreign minister.
  • (7) During the police repression of the Tunisian revolution, they were beaten by security thugs, and in rural areas around Kasserine some were raped by police after demonstrations.
  • (8) The commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Sir Paul Stephenson, said today that armed officers protecting Prince Charles and his wife Camilla as their car was attacked by student protesters showed "enormous restraint" and condemned the "thugs" who attacked the vehicle.
  • (9) After all, every veto holder had attacked another country in defiance of the charter, but no one had ever disputed the alleged Westphalian right of each anointed thug to mistreat his "own" people.
  • (10) "Free speech is a principle of our democracy, but the thugs that prompted violence ... represent in no way shape or form the Canadian way of life," Dimitri Soudas, the chief spokesman for the prime minister, Stephen Harper, said.
  • (11) "The media like to paint a picture of hooligans and thugs, mindless men on the rampage.
  • (12) She has no problem combining the roles of mother and hitperson: during one exchange of fire, she offs three thugs, then turns to her daughter and asks, "Honey, should we get a puppy?"
  • (13) Not surprisingly, the Thugs caught the imagination of the British at home (which is how the word "thug" entered the English language), and became a touchstone for colonial justifications for ruling India.
  • (14) Bikers for Trump: 'He'll get my vote because he's off his goddamn rocker' Read more Although Cleveland is the most fortified city in America at the moment, with thousands of police, FBI and secret service agents securing the Republican national convention, David – who won’t give me his last name but says he is from Minnesota – worries about “agitators” and “thugs” who make him feel unsafe.
  • (15) "If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves," Major General Michael T Flynn, then the senior US military intelligence official in Afghanistan, was quoted as saying .
  • (16) Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a longstanding critic of Obama’s foreign policy credentials, urged the president to “do something” rather than deliver what he called empty threats to “thugs and dictators”.
  • (17) You used to be pretty certain, when a killing happened, that it was the work of the state, or thugs in the pay of the state.
  • (18) One of the emails mentioned Watson, who strongly denied any involvement, but the Sun branded him “a Brownite thug”.
  • (19) How embarrassing that some members of the government appear to have behaved in the manner of uncouth thugs – and towards someone representing the UN, which dared to question the bedroom tax.
  • (20) Hosni Mubarak launched his counter-revolution today, sending waves of armed thugs to do battle with pro-democracy demonstrators in Cairo and other cities.