(v. i.) To play the ruffian; to rage; to raise tumult.
Example Sentences:
(1) Behind the Manchester ruffian image, they were conscientious people.
(2) These trousers, it later transpired, cost £995, and Nicky Morgan duly seized that predictable bait and snorted, “I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much on anything apart from my wedding dress.” After all, she added, while possibly patting a young local ruffian on the head, “My barometer is always, ‘How am I going to explain this in Loughborough market?” I think this was Morgan’s clueless way of saying she keeps it real, but it didn’t really work because those trousers looked exactly like the kind of thing sold in my local market, which, just this weekend, alongside the £1 Christmas crackers, was selling leather bustiers and disgusting, studded leather jackets.
(3) Two centuries later, Ruskin echoed these sentiments: Caravaggio, he claimed, painted “for the sake of the shadows”, and he was a “ruffian … distinguished only by his preference for candlelight and reinforcement of villainy”.
(4) Budget night at the opera: 28 March 1980 The souvenir programme (with it being a gala night, the programme cost more than a seat in some other theatres) promised "knights, esquires, ladies, ruffians, pages, maskers, soldiers, ushers, halberdiers, cupbearers and gondoliers."
(5) With their tight jeans and updated teddy-boy styles, the four gaff lads exude rough sex: they could have walked straight out of the Smiths's "Rusholme Ruffians" from the album Meat is Murder.
Villain
Definition:
(n.) One who holds lands by a base, or servile, tenure, or in villenage; a feudal tenant of the lowest class, a bondman or servant.
(n.) A baseborn or clownish person; a boor.
(n.) A vile, wicked person; a man extremely depraved, and capable or guilty of great crimes; a deliberate scoundrel; a knave; a rascal; a scamp.
(a.) Villainous.
(v. t.) To debase; to degrade.
Example Sentences:
(1) But I know the full story and it’s a bit different from what people see.” The full story is heavy on the extremes of emotion and as the man who took a stricken but much-loved club away from its community, Winkelman knows that his part is that of villain; the war of words will rumble on.
(2) They’re not moustache-twirling villains that are going, “ah ha ha that’s great”, they’re going: “You’re right.
(3) Society needs a villain and right now we’re convenient.” “ I will carefully admit there has been an awful lot of almonds planted that maybe shouldn’t have been because outside money came in and wanted to plant,” he says.
(4) Reith, “his dour handsome face scarred like that of a villain in a melodrama”, was “a strange shepherd for such a mixed, bohemian flock … he had under his aegis a bevy of ex-soldiers, ex-actors, ex-adventurers which … even a Dartmoor prison governor might have had difficulty in controlling”.
(5) The success of Capote paved the way for bigger and more nuanced parts for Hoffman, his turn as the villain in Mission: Impossible III (2006) notwithstanding.
(6) Maleficent, Disney's latest film out on 28 May, offers the untold back story of the villain from the 1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty, with Jolie in the title role.
(7) When I was nine or 10 I leapt directly from Doctor Dolittle to Dr No, leaving behind all those stupid talking animals and free-falling into a far naughtier realm of suavely promiscuous government assassins, hot shell-diving beauties and villains with metal hands and messianic plans for humanity.
(8) And that’s what we do in drama and comedy: we create our own heroes and villains, so no one really gets hurt.
(9) You're a devious villain conducting the perfect crime, like the dashing guest star in the opening scene of a classic Columbo.
(10) These villains have limited aspirations, and the man in the white hat has a limited arsenal of era-appropriate weaponry: a gun, a bow and arrow, a few grenades, maybe even a tank.
(11) The people shaping the news require a very simple story – they have to be angels and villains.” John Stoltenberg is a gay-rights activist who lived with the feminist writer Andrea Dworkin until her death in 2005.
(12) We are not the villains you paint us on your trollblogs.
(13) For the real villain – look behind Obama, to the Republican party.
(14) It is, according to environmentalist and MP Zac Goldsmith, the most dramatic turnaround of any global green villain ever seen and an encouraging sign that huge environmental challenges can be tackled.
(15) As Paltrow explains: “So-called pro-life measures are being used in ways that not only violate women’s reproductive rights, but create the basis for depriving them of their constitutional personhood and human rights.” While it may be easy to cast women who drink in pregnancy as villains, criminalising them does no one any favours, save for those with a broader anti-women agenda.
(16) Fleming was intrigued by Engelhard's extravagant lifestyle and when he wrote Goldfinger , published in 1959, he based its eponymous villain on him.
(17) In the Kenzie and Gennaro series, like all good detective fiction, the city is as sharp and unpredictable as the villains themselves.
(18) Why swapping heroes for heroines is a Top Dollar idea Read more The potential gender-swap casting comes after Britain’s Andrea Riseborough was named earlier this month as a frontrunner to play the villain Top Dollar in a high-profile upcoming remake of cult comic book movie The Crow.
(19) Mohammed al-Sabban Senior economic adviser, Saudi Arabia Moustachioed high-up in his country's ministry of petroleum and mineral resources, leader of the Saudi Arabian negotiating team, and a reasonable bet for Copenhagen's most likely villain.
(20) For one thing, villains always believe they are exceptional.