How to Use hoodlum in a Sentence

hoodlum

noun
  • Street hoodlums threw sticks at him and bombed his front porch with bricks.
    — Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun, 23 July 2023
  • Reams said the cook had a helper, nicknamed a hoodlum, who did the heavy lifting and chores.
    — Vincent T. Davis, ExpressNews.com, 15 Feb. 2020
  • These two hoodlums deserve to be put away for a very long time.
    — Letter Writers, Twin Cities, 6 Feb. 2017
  • He's jumped by a bunch of teen hoodlums who steal his sign and give him a beating in an alley.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 31 Aug. 2019
  • But once arrested, they were portrayed by the press as a gang of hoodlums.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 June 2019
  • How was this cutup going to convince as a creature of the night, striking fear in the heart of hoodlums?
    — Vulture, 25 Aug. 2023
  • How was this cutup going to convince as a creature of the night, striking fear in the heart of hoodlums?
    — Vulture, 17 June 2023
  • Frankie and his friends, a group of young Coney Island hoodlums without much to do, spend their evenings trolling the boardwalk for babes and bud.
    — Katie Walsh, chicagotribune.com, 24 Aug. 2017
  • Hernández de Cruceño, however, was new in town, and had the look of a malandro, or hoodlum.
    — Seth Harp, Harper's Magazine, 27 Apr. 2020
  • Hernández de Cruceño, however, was new in town, and had the look of a malandro, or hoodlum.
    — Seth Harp, Harper's Magazine, 27 Apr. 2020
  • Hernández de Cruceño, however, was new in town, and had the look of a malandro, or hoodlum.
    — Seth Harp, Harper's Magazine, 27 Apr. 2020
  • Hernández de Cruceño, however, was new in town, and had the look of a malandro, or hoodlum.
    — Christine Smallwood, Harper's Magazine, 30 Mar. 2020
  • Hernández de Cruceño, however, was new in town, and had the look of a malandro, or hoodlum.
    — Christine Smallwood, Harper's Magazine, 30 Mar. 2020
  • Hernández de Cruceño, however, was new in town, and had the look of a malandro, or hoodlum.
    — Seth Harp, Harper's magazine, 2 Mar. 2020
  • The issue is not too many guns; the issue is too many thugs, hoodlums and savage criminals on our streets.
    — Nbc Universal, NBC News, 16 Apr. 2023
  • Bennett was once shot and wounded in a confrontation with a hoodlum.
    — Jack Kresnak, Detroit Free Press, 28 Jan. 2024
  • The issue is too many thugs, hoodlums and savage criminals on our street.
    — CBS News, 16 Apr. 2023
  • That's a bunch of hoodlums getting drunk in a bunk bed situation.
    — Dalton Ross, EW.com, 21 Feb. 2024
  • In one scene the country-music legend, who portrayed a hoodlum named Johnny Cabot, grabbed Ron and held him hostage.
    — Patrick J. Kiger, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2021
  • Critics refer to the kids who covered the iconic Beaux Arts-style building as vandals and hoodlums.
    — Phoebe Wall Howard, Detroit Free Press, 7 June 2024
  • However, their dreams are threatened by the hoodlums in the Riverbottom Gang.
    — EW.com, 30 Nov. 2024
  • And, of course, there’s Mark Wahlberg, an ace actor who parlayed his Calvin-Klein-hoodlum-of-rap image into true movie stardom.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 28 Nov. 2021
  • There was plenty to loathe about certain members of the band of criminals who surrounded our hoodlum-in-chief.
    — John R. MacArthur, Harper’s Magazine , 7 Dec. 2021
  • Instead of the track pants and leather jackets that local hoodlums wore to school, their look was a kind of ’50s retro: plaid blazers and polka-dot ties, slacks with suspenders, pressed white shirts, long hair slicked back with too much gel.
    — Simon Shuster, TIME, 4 Jan. 2024
  • The duo visit the musty apartment of a reclusive language tutor, the elegant suite of a physicist in the employ of the U.S. government, and the shadowy ghetto lair of a brutal young hoodlum.
    — Tom Nolan, WSJ, 30 Nov. 2018
  • For years, Gentile was known to but mostly ignored by FBI and state police mob investigators, who wrote him off as a nickel and dime hoodlum.
    — Edmund H. Mahony, courant.com, 22 Sep. 2021
  • A month before the stabbing, police had banged on Alfred Kiefer’s front door in Southeast Portland, seeking to arrest the 35-year-old hoodlum on extortion charges.
    — oregonlive, 3 Dec. 2019
  • On another, hoodlums ran through the crowd, whacking protesters with plastic chairs.
    — Drew Hinshaw, WSJ, 24 Dec. 2017
  • Participants will ride on a bus to view the exteriors of 14 Oak Park and River Forest houses once owned by major hoodlums.
    — Myrna Petlicki, chicagotribune.com, 26 June 2018
  • There have been some teething problems: Vague gossip about injuries, social media gripes from pedestrians about rude young scooter hoodlums, complaints about scofflaws not obeying the rules of the road.
    — al, 10 Jan. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hoodlum.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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