Thug entered English in 1810 as the name of a specific organisation: a member of a confederacy in India who robbed and strangled travellers. The word is Marathi and Hindi thag, "cheat, swindler," perhaps from a Sanskrit word meaning cunning or fraudulent, from a root meaning "to cover, to conceal."
The contemporary English description is worth quoting for what it shows about the borrowing: the thugs travelled in bands disguised as pedlars or pilgrims, gained the confidence of other travellers, and strangled them with a handkerchief or a noosed cord, motivated less by plunder than by religious fanaticism. English took the word as a proper name for that group and then generalised it to any violent criminal — the standard path for a borrowing that names something the borrowers encountered as an administrative problem.
thug (n.) 1810, "member of a gang of murderers and robbers in India who strangled their victims," from Marathi thag, thak "cheat, swindler," Hindi thag , perhaps from Sanskrit sthaga-s "cunning, fraudulent," from sthagayati "(he) covers, conceals," from PIE root *(s)teg- "to cover." The thugs roamed about the country in bands of from 10 to 100, usually in the disguise of peddlers or pilgrims, gaining the confidence of other travelers, whom they strangled, when a favorable opportunity presented itself, with a handkerchief, an unwound turban, or a noosed cord. The shedding of blood was seldom resorted to. The motive of the thugs was not so much lust of plunder as a certain religious fanaticism. The bodies of their victims were hidden in graves dug with a consecrated pickax, and of their spoil one third was devoted to the goddess Kali, whom they worshiped. [Century Dictionary] The more correct Indian name is phanseegur (from phansi "noose"), and the activity was described in English as far back as c. 1665. Rigorously prosecuted by the British from 1831, they were driven from existence by century's end. Transferred or extended sense of "ruffian, cutthroat, violent lowbrow" is from 1839. also from 1810
thug came in through Later and wider borrowings, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
What gives it away on the page
| everyday domestic words from India | Sanskrit-descended languages, via the Raj.shampoo, bungalow, jungle, pyjamas, loot, thug, guru |
Later and wider borrowings in the spelling guide · guess another word's family