A ruffian is a rough, violent person who causes trouble and shows no respect for others or their property. Ruffians might bully people on the street, start fights for no good reason, or damage things just because they can. The word suggests someone who is both rude and genuinely threatening and aggressive.

You might encounter ruffians in stories set in old cities or frontier towns, where lawless troublemakers roamed the streets looking for fights. In Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, young Oliver falls in with a gang of pickpockets and ruffians who commit crimes across London. Pirates in adventure stories often hire ruffians as crew members, people who'd rather solve problems with their fists than with conversation.

The word has an old-fashioned sound to it, like something from a swashbuckling adventure or historical novel. Today, you're more likely to hear words like “thug” or “bully,” but ruffian still appears when writers want to describe someone who's both violent and crude. Unlike a professional criminal who might be clever or organized, a ruffian is rough around the edges and causes trouble through brute force and intimidation.