plug-ugly
Britishadjective
noun
Etymology
Origin of plug-ugly
C19: origin obscure; originally applied to ruffians in New York who attempted to exert political pressure
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But perhaps more than any American dramatist working today, Mr. Bradshaw walks — no, make that tramples — the lines that divide the good, the bad and the plug-ugly, both in art and in life.
From New York Times • Nov. 15, 2011
Until the President was actually dead, Chancellor Hitler had kept the Neudeck estate isolated by plug-ugly guards with pistols on hips who roughly drove back the bolder correspondents.
From Time Magazine Archive
In The Champ, Beery was a broken-down plug-ugly who achieved moral and physical regeneration through his desire to justify the adoration of little Jackie Cooper.
From Time Magazine Archive
Famed men of the day are shown in typical guises, Editor James Gordon Bennett as a woolly, aggressive cur, President Buchanan as an Irish plug-ugly, President William Henry Harrison with his cider barrel.
From Time Magazine Archive
He is an unmitigated ruffian, the plug-ugly of the woods.
From Little Rivers; a book of essays in profitable idleness by Van Dyke, Henry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
