ruffianly

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for ruffianly
Adjective
  • The banal village tunes that Mahler altered into sinister mock vulgarities—did these not recall the raffish klezmer bands, the wandering musicians who played at shtetl weddings?
    David Denby, The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2025
  • There’s an over-the-top and overdressed fish out of water (me), a raffish Englishmen homesick for Great Britain (my husband Aidan, who will be mortified to read any of this), and an ensemble of quirky characters.
    Mosha Lundström Halbert, Vogue, 20 Dec. 2024
Adjective
  • If a single song can't propel the right emotional forward motion, maybe a dozen will do so, in the form of a riotous medley.
    Michael Barnes, Austin American Statesman, 8 July 2025
  • Next to them were dozens of baskets of impatiens (shade-loving annuals) in riotous colors.
    Barbara Ellis, Denver Post, 7 July 2025
Adjective
  • The bar queues remain orderly, the chat is boisterous, but body odour is now rife.
    Tim Spiers, New York Times, 11 July 2025
  • At a boisterous court hearing Monday, America’s largest for-profit prison company asked a Kansas judge to reconsider whether it should be allowed to reopen its shuttered Leavenworth prison as an immigrant detention center.
    Kansas City Star, Kansas City Star, 8 July 2025
Adjective
  • The doc contains lots of footage of the rowdy crowd.
    Olivia B. Waxman, Time, 8 July 2025
  • More toward the rowdy end are the closet-sized bars of Shinjuku’s Golden Gai, a warren of grungy alleys home to snug drinking holes with obscure themes and idiosyncratic bartender-owners.
    Jessica Kozuka, Travel + Leisure, 6 July 2025
Adjective
  • Customers at Starbucks will be introduced to a new interface with a carnival-style wheel.
    Anna Kaufman, USA TODAY, 30 Mar. 2023
  • The Square has spooky carnival-style games.
    Annie Alleman, Chicago Tribune, 12 Sep. 2022
Adjective
  • Colbert also announced the cancellation to his own audience on Thursday's episode of The Late Show, which was greeted with a raucous round of booing.
    Ryan Coleman, EW.com, 18 July 2025
  • The course last hosted The Open in 2019, when Shane Lowry triumphed in front of a raucous home crowd.
    Devlina Sarkar, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 July 2025
Adjective
  • As droves of tourists continue to flock to Spain for European summer vacations, the nation’s emergency responders are dealing with the aftermath of a violent wave of flash flooding in nearly half of the country’s 50 provinces.
    Opheli Garcia Lawler, Travel + Leisure, 14 July 2025
  • The two got married, had a baby, and started a quiet life together far away from his violent past.
    Allison DeGrushe Published, EW.com, 14 July 2025
Adjective
  • There was something almost carnivalesque about playing baseball in such miserable conditions.
    Louisa Thomas, New Yorker, 5 May 2025
  • Before last year’s trial, the blocks surrounding the Superior Court in Dedham developed a carnivalesque atmosphere.
    Lance Reynolds, Boston Herald, 12 Apr. 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Ruffianly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ruffianly. Accessed 24 Jul. 2025.

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