badass
Definitions & Usage
(US, sometimes considered vulgar, slang, negative connotation) A belligerent or mean person; a person with an unpleasantly extreme appearance, attitudes, or behavior.
(US, sometimes considered vulgar, slang, positive connotation) A person considered impressive due to courage, skill, daring, audacity, and/or toughness.
(US, sometimes considered vulgar, slang, negative connotation) Belligerent and troublesome.
Notable Literary & Historical Quotes
“A shake down officer, Sgt. Soaper, and Capt. Swarts, have been reading all my mail, including GCN (which is authorized to come in). Soaper has been sending the prison bad-asses to my cell to force me to have sex with them. Yesterday, Soaper opened my door and 2 prisoners came in and raped me. Capt. Swarts told me that he was going to make me pay for writing letters to GCN and that there was nothing anyone could do about it.”
— 1984 August 4, Charlie Dill, “"Child Molester's Paper"”, in Gay Community News, page 4:
“There are badasses, and there are badasses. Dothan is one of the latter, from a family full of badasses. I'm not saying he isn't a decent sort. He's fully rational, not like his brother Curtis. But Christ, when the sombitch gets mad …”
— 1995, Robert Girardi, Madeleine’s Ghost, New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →ISBN:
“A survival tactic I learned on the psych ward was how to quickly size up potential enemies or garden-variety badasses.”
— 2012, Ilsa J. Bick, Drowning Instinct, Minneapolis, Minn.: Carolrhoda Lab, →ISBN: