What's the difference between riffraff and thug?

Riffraff


Definition:

  • (n.) Sweepings; refuse; the lowest order of society.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The financial regulator is not there to act like a badass new sheriff in town who is going to cleanse it of the riffraff and crack down on loose morals.
  • (2) "We'll never accept this riffraff," said the leader of the Party of France , Thomas Joly.
  • (3) The kind of riffraff that behave like militias on behalf of local oligarchs.
  • (4) These girls were treated like riffraff who were undeserving of the law and not deemed worthy of care – and that was the overwhelming thing we learnt from this story,” said Hogg, adding: “The terrible thing was when the girls came in to tell the police what was happening, the police ignored them because they didn’t believe when they stood up in the witness box they would be believed.” I exposed the Rochdale scandal – Three Girls should be a catalyst for progress | Sara Rowbotham Read more The was a view echoed by Taylor.

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.

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