thug, n.
(θʌg, prop. thʌg)
Also 9 thag, theg, t'hug.
[a. Hindī ṭhag, Mahr. ṭhag, ṭhak a cheat, swindler.]
(With capital T.) One of an association of professional robbers and murderers in India, who strangled their victims; a p'hansigar. Also attrib.
Their methods were described already in Thevenot's Voyages, c 1665 (see Yule). They are mentioned under their more correct name of p'hansigars (phanseegurs), i.e. ‘stranglers’, by Forbes Orient. Mem. IV. 13 (1813), and as Thugs, Thags, or Thegs from 1810. Their suppression was rigidly prosecuted from 1831, and the system is now extinct.
| 1810 in Hist. & Pract. Thugs xxi. (1837) 329 It having come to the knowledge of Government, that several Sepoys..have been robbed and murdered by a description of persons denominated ‘Thugs’, who infested the districts of the Dooab and other parts of the Upper Provinces. 1816 in Asiat. Res. XIII. 287 The term ‘Theg’ is usually applied, in the western provinces, to persons who rob and murder travellers on the highways, either by poison, or the application of the cord or knife. 1839 M. Taylor Confess. Thug (1873) 2 You know not the high and stirring excitement of a Thug's occupation. 1897 Daily News 22 Sept. 6/4 When the Prince of Wales was in India, a Thug criminal showed him how victims were strangled. |
b. transf. A cutthroat, ruffian, rough.
| 1839 Carlyle Chartism i. 4 ‘Glasgow Thuggery’, ‘Glasgow Thugs’; it is a witty nickname. 1881 R. L. Stevenson Virginibus Puerisque 164 Sometimes it [sc. death] leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug. 1883 Cable in Century Mag. June 230/1 A few ‘thugs’ terrorized the city with..beating, stabbing, and shooting. 1889 Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 24 Apr. 1/8 Thugs, plug-uglies, and ‘flash sports’. 1895 J. Burns in Westm. Gaz. 17 Jan. 2/1 They even engage ‘knockers-out’, who..belabour and disable voters as they are entering the booths... They are called ‘election Thugs’. 1958 P. Gibbs Curtains of Yesterday xxvii. 216 ‘Isn't he a madman?’ he asked. ‘Isn't he raising an army of young thugs, his brutish young Brownshirts? Haven't they been fighting and brawling in Bavaria?’ 1967 S. Faessler in Atlantic Monthly Apr. 103/2 The old man ducked for cover.., but not my father. Unarmed he stood up to the thugs, and was cracked over the head for it. 1982 Daily Tel. 7 Jan. 16/6 A plea..that it [sc. corporal punishment] should be retained as the final deterrent for school ‘thugs’. |
Hence thug v., trans. (a) to assassinate by thuggee; (b) intr. to be a thug (sense b). U.S.; ˈThugdom, the domain of Thugs; ˈThuggess, a female Thug; ˈThuggism, the practice and principles of Thugs: = next.
| 1837 Edin. Rev. Jan. 369 If a single civilian or military man had been thugged, thuggee would have been abolished long ago. 1839 De Quincey Murder ad fin., At length came the toast of the day—Thugdom in all its branches. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. I. ii. 155 What teachers of Thuggism would appear to ourselves, the teachers of heresy actually appeared to Sir Thomas More. 1859 Lang Wand. India 100 The victim, another Thuggess, was supposed to be sleeping when the operation was performed. 1903 Daily Chron. 4 Dec. 5/2 Lord William Bentinck is..known for his suppression of Thuggism, which made strangling a religious rite to the goddess Kali. 1937 Sun (Baltimore) 6 May 7/2 When I was thugging in Harlan county,..Merle Middleton was the chief of the gang. 1965 W. Soyinka Road 22 Chief:..Are you..one of the boys? Samson: I won't thug for you if that is what you mean. |