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Glite Dictionary
thuggish reputation

thuggish reputation

7.7
A reputation for being violent and aggressive, often linked to crime
  • noun
  • NSFW
translation icon : reputación violenta
  • The company's thuggish reputation made new clients wary of doing business with them.

Examples

  • The gang has a notorious thuggish reputation.

  • The football team gained a thuggish reputation after several brawls on the pitch.

  • Despite his thuggish reputation, he was known to be kind to animals.

  • He was trying to escape his thuggish reputation.

  • The gang has a thuggish reputation for intimidating local businesses and engaging in illegal activities.

  • Due to its thuggish reputation, the neighborhood struggled to attract new residents or businesses.

  • People often avoided that bar because it had developed a thuggish reputation over the years.

Antonyms

respectable
114 3.0

Seen by people as good and socially acceptable

law-abidingness
7.0

A habit of always obeying the law and public rules

Surface Forms

thuggish reputation singular
thuggish reputations plural

Morphology

thuggish + reputation

The phrase's meaning is directly built from 'thuggish' (behaving like a thug/violent) plus 'reputation' (what people think about someone), so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes being known for violent or criminal behavior. The adjective+noun compositional pattern is straightforward and cross-linguistically common, making the MWE transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Thuggish reputation names a simple picture: thuggish comes from thug, a rough, often violent person, and reputation is what people say about someone. So when someone has a thuggish reputation, people see them as 'violent, aggressive, or involved in crime'.