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
Ann called him a soulless plug-ugly, rushed off to Hollywood, where she got a job as pressagent to a child star, vicious, golden-haired Joey Cooley.
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
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
Every criminal and plug-ugly in the country is spitting in our faces this morning.
From Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger A Romance of the Mountain West by Garland, Hamlin
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.
