ruffianly

comparative more ruffianly · superlative most ruffianly

1. Like or having the qualities of a ruffian.First known use 16th c.

   One righteous man who reverences the Gods Shall shipmate be with a ruffianly crew […]

   1922, “The Seven against Thebes”, in Geoffrey Montagu Cookson, transl., Four Plays of Aeschylus, page 136

   2 more examples

   Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar; but, gave no intimation of ascending; so, his master dived down to him, leaving me vis-à-vis the ruffianly bitch, and a pair of grim, shaggy sheep dogs, who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements.

   1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter I, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume I, London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC, page 10

   By his side padded a big ruffianly collie, and he led by a string a miserable-looking terrier, at which the collie now and then snapped viciously.

   1930 July, John Buchan, “The First Day of the Hegira—The Inn at Watermeeting”, in Castle Gay, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, →OCLC, page 140

comparative more ruffianly · superlative most ruffianly

1. In the manner of a ruffian.