Toady vs Ruffian - What's the difference?
toady | ruffian |
A sycophant who flatters others to gain personal advantage.
* 1929, , Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 61
* 1912 , Stratemeyer Syndicate, Baseball Joe on the School Nine Chapter 1
* Charles Dickens
(archaic) A coarse, rustic woman.
To behave like a toady (to someone).
A scoundrel, rascal, or unprincipled, deceitful, brutal and unreliable person.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) A pimp; a pander.
(obsolete) A lover; a paramour.
* Bishop Reynolds
As nouns the difference between toady and ruffian
is that toady is a sycophant who flatters others to gain personal advantage while ruffian is a scoundrel, rascal, or unprincipled, deceitful, brutal and unreliable person.As verbs the difference between toady and ruffian
is that toady is to behave like a toady (to someone) while ruffian is to play the ruffian; to rage; to raise tumult.As an adjective ruffian is
brutal; cruel; savagely boisterous; murderous.toady
English
Noun
(toadies)- But how could she have helped herself? I asked, imagining the sneers and the laughter, the adulation of the toadies , the scepticism of the professional poet.
- "Go on, Hiram, show 'em what you can do," urged Luke Fodick, who was a sort of toady to Hiram Shell, the school bully, if ever there was one.
- Before I had been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs.
- (Sir Walter Scott)
Synonyms
* See alsoDerived terms
* toadyishVerb
Anagrams
*ruffian
English
Noun
(en noun)- Wilt thou on thy deathbed play the ruffian ?
- He [her husband] is no sooner abroad than she is instantly at home, revelling with her ruffians .