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thug [thug 词源字典]: thug: [19] Hindi thag means literally ‘robber, cheat’ (it is descended from Sanskrit sthaga ‘robber’, a derivative of sthagati ‘cover, hide’, which goes back ultimately to the Indo- European base *steg-, *teg- ‘cover’, source also of English deck, detect, integument, protect, thatch, etc). It came to be applied to members of a band of professional thieves and murderers in India, whose preferred method of dispatching their victims was strangulation (their other name was phansigar, literally ‘strangler’); and English took it over in the 1830s as a general term for a ‘brutally violent person’.
=> deck, detect, protect, thatch[thug etymology, thug origin, 英语词源]
brutal (adj.): mid-15c., in reference to the nature of animals, from Latin brutus (see brute (adj.)) + -al (1). Of persons, "fierce," 1640s. Related: Brutally.
trail (n.): early 14c., "trailing part of a robe, gown, etc.," from trail (v.). The meaning "track or smell left by a person or animal" is also from 1580s. Meaning "path or track worn in wilderness" is attested from 1807. Trail of Tears in reference to the U.S. government's brutally incompetent Cherokee removal of 1838-9 is attested by 1908.