Thuggery is violent, bullying behaviour — hitting people, smashing things, frightening people into doing what you want. It is the behaviour of thugs, named as a whole. It is an uncountable noun, so you say 'thuggery', never 'a thuggery' or 'thuggeries'. Where you meet it is important: this is a newspaper and politics word, and it is used to judge. When a politician calls something thuggery, they are saying: this was not protest, this was not politics, this was just violence, and it deserves no respect. That is why the word appears so often in arguments about protests and strikes — one side says 'protest', the other says 'thuggery', and choosing the word is the whole argument. It can also stretch away from fists to mean heavy-handed bullying: 'political thuggery' or 'corporate thuggery' usually means threats and pressure rather than punches. It is a formal-sounding word — you would read it, not say it to a friend.

暴力行為、流氓行徑（不可數）。多用在新聞、政治評論裡，帶有強烈譴責的意味。