Gonif

(GON-if) 

Thief. Gonif can be used in the straightforward, burglar sense of the word,

but it can also be spoken affectionately, with a meaning more like clever rascal.

Boss Tweed oversaw the looting of millions of dollars in city money when he

presided over the Tammany Hall political machine at the turn of the century.

To his political adversaries, he was a scurrilous gonif (meaning one);

but if you were part of his vast system of patronage, you might well

suggest that old Tweed was quite the ingenious gonif (meaning two).

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