as in thug
a violent, brutal person who is often a member of an organized gang
a couple of hoodlums held up the convenience store
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Recent Examples of hoodlum
Critics refer to the kids who covered the iconic Beaux Arts-style building as vandals and hoodlums.
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Phoebe Wall Howard, Detroit Free Press, 7 June 2024
Skipping the childhood stuff, the story gets going with Eddie or Edik as a young factory worker and poet manqué in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in the 1960s after a rocky hoodlum phase which saw him getting sent by his parents to a mental hospital.
—Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 May 2024
Those protestors that Saturday didn’t look like principled advocates for anything, but more like a bunch of selfish hoodlums who need to grow up.
—Letter Writers, Twin Cities, 12 May 2024
Citizens began to ask why the supposedly omnipotent Chinese Communist Party was powerless against ragtag hoodlums in the poorest fringes of Asia’s poorest nations.
—TIME, 21 Mar. 2024
See all Example Sentences for hoodlum 
Phoebe Wall Howard, Detroit Free Press, 7 June 2024
Skipping the childhood stuff, the story gets going with Eddie or Edik as a young factory worker and poet manqué in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in the 1960s after a rocky hoodlum phase which saw him getting sent by his parents to a mental hospital.
—Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 May 2024
Those protestors that Saturday didn’t look like principled advocates for anything, but more like a bunch of selfish hoodlums who need to grow up.
—Letter Writers, Twin Cities, 12 May 2024
Citizens began to ask why the supposedly omnipotent Chinese Communist Party was powerless against ragtag hoodlums in the poorest fringes of Asia’s poorest nations.
—TIME, 21 Mar. 2024
See all Example Sentences for hoodlum
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hoodlum
Noun
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The proximate cause of the war crimes chronicled in Han’s novels is South Korea’s succession of authoritarian governments, their soldiers and police; on Jeju Island, these were joined by gangs of right-wing thugs.Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 14 Jan. 2025
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Yes, that is Canet playing the paragliding avenger, Franck, who’s trying to free his abducted pregnant wife, Léo (Stéphane Caillard), from a blackmailing thug.Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Times, 10 Jan. 2025
Noun
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His family told the local press that the man responsible for his death was a gangster from a rival group who had been living in exile in South Africa.Matthew Bremner, Rolling Stone, 5 Jan. 2025
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The group’s chairman is John Chan, a former Chinatown gangster convicted of human trafficking and drug smuggling charges in the mid-2000s who has since become influential in New York politics.Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News, 4 Jan. 2025
Noun
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It’s widely expected that the administration will first seek to deport criminals who are in this country illegally.David Lightman, Sacramento Bee, 19 Jan. 2025
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Dave Chappelle not only touched on the L.A. County wildfires during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live but also spoofed the evacuations by pretending to be a criminal with a whole lot to hide.Lynette Rice, Deadline, 19 Jan. 2025
Noun
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Also tossed in are picturesque but gratuitous use of famous tourist landmarks as background, near-superheroic training montages, credible intimate character dynamics, a ruthless villain (Johan Heldenbergh as Vanaken) and action that in the home stretch goes absurdly over-the-top.Dennis Harvey, Variety, 13 Jan. 2025
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And though Young and (especially) the perpetrators of the massacre are clearly the villains of the piece, their past history at least partly explains their choices.Keith Phipps, Vulture, 10 Jan. 2025
Noun
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Several warring factions exist within the Zone, as well as lone bandits and stalkers.Issy van der Velde, Rolling Stone, 20 Nov. 2024
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Nationwide, charging executives say the issue is more pronounced in urban centers, with particularly consistent problems in Las Vegas, Seattle, and Oakland, California. RELATED: Magid: EV shoppers finally have plenty of choices Many of these cord bandits are on the hunt for copper.Bloomberg, The Mercury News, 24 Sep. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near hoodlum
Cite this Entry
“Hoodlum.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hoodlum. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
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