• A person, often a criminal, who treats others violently and roughly, especially for hire
• Thug (in this usage written with an uppercase T) (from Hindi ठग ṭhag), a member of the defunct Indian cult Thuggee
• Thug, a gardening term meaning an over-vigorous plant that spreads excessively
• Thug, a wooden bat used in the naturists' game miniten
• Thug, a type of allomancer in the Mistborn series of books by Brandon Sanderson

In music

• ThugLine Records, a record label
• Thug Misses Entertainment, a record label
• "Thug Life", a hip hop group and a related philosophy developed by Tupac Shakur
• Thug Life: Volume 1, the groups debut album
• T.H.U.G.S., a 1996 album by Flesh-N-Bone, from the rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
• T.H.U.G.S. (Bone Thugs-n-Harmony album), a 2007 album by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
• "T.H.U.G. (True Hero Under God)", a song by rap artist Z-Ro, from the 2006 album I'm Still Livin'