desperado

plural desperadoes · plural desperados

1. A bold outlaw, especially one from southern portions of the Wild West.

   Surely this was the face of a desperado.

   1918, Willa Cather, My Antonia, paperback edition, Mirado Modern Classics, page 6

   2 more examples

   The kind of persons who excite or give signal to such revolutions — students, young men of letters […], or fierce and justly bankrupt desperadoes, acting everywhere on the discontent of the millions and blowing it into flame, — might give rise to reflections as to the character of our epoch.

   1850, Thomas Carlyle, “The present time”, in Latter-Day Pamphlets

   Tom became increasingly skilled at dealing with what he called “rascality”: cow rustlers, horse thieves, scalawags, rumrunners, stagecoach robbers, desperadoes, and other lawbreakers.

   2021 (originally published 2017, adapted 2021), David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: Adapted for Younger Readers, page 126

2. colloquialA person in desperate circumstances or who is at the point of desperation, such as a down-and-outer, an addict, etc.

   The shortstops and desperados were not permitted to play in this marker crap game.

   1981, Sam Grafstein, Dice Doctor

3. colloquialA person who is desperately in love or is desperate for a romantic or sexual relationship.
4. board gamesA piece that seems determined to give itself up, typically to bring about stalemate or perpetual check.