ugly customer

noun

1. a hostile or dangerous person.

Word History and Origins

Origin of ugly customer¹

First recorded in 1805–15

Idioms and Phrases

An ill-natured or vicious individual, as in Watch out for Charlie when he's drinking; he can be an ugly customer . This phrase uses ugly in the sense of “mean” or “dangerous.” [c. 1800]

Example Sentences

A writer from Life magazine would describe the bull as “an unusually ugly customer”; it weighed more than 1,000 pounds and was aggravated from the get-go, shooting headlong out of the gate before eventually steadying itself, inscrutably, at the center of the ring.

From New York Times

I've known different kinds of danger, too--all the family relations, so to speak: jungle fever, malaria, cholera and Black Jack; lions, tigers, rogue-elephants and buffalo, and the last's an ugly customer when he's wounded--you may take my word for that; I've seen war, shipwreck, cannibals, pygmies and sudden death; and I've known men who could hold their own in the midst of the whole boiling lot.

From Project Gutenberg

Clarke, the other adventurer, to whom the title of pirate more fairly belonged, had been ashore to the castle a day previously, and had been entertained in a friendly way, the fact being that the Earl and his tenants were a little afraid of him as an ugly customer.

From Project Gutenberg

If he meets a savage-looking dog, he calls him an ‘ugly customer.’

From Project Gutenberg

Ug′someness.—Ugly customer, a dangerous antagonist; Ugly man, the actual person who garrottes the victim in a confederacy of three, the others, the fore-stall and back-stall, covering his escape.

From Project Gutenberg