bastard

MMA is the bastard child of illegal street fights and martial arts, which has always made for a strange blend of freak-show sleaze and a culture of respect.

From Slate ● Jun. 14, 2026

Ironically, the situation now is a bastard version of one reform favored by free market types: paying athletes without any pretense that they are real students.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 24, 2025

He reacts with the defiance of a man whose football-playing friend recently described him as a "hard bastard".

From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2025

Gov't Mule is kind of the bastard child of the jam scene – the black sheep – because we're heavier than other jam bands.

From Salon ● Jun. 17, 2023

“I’m a princess too,” Shireen announced, “but I never had a sister. I used to have a cousin once, before he sailed away. He was just a bastard, but I liked him.”

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

Beforehand, Salfordian frontman Shaun Ryder told BBC News it was "brilliant that those lazy bastards from London have decided to get off their bums and come up north for an hour or two".

From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2026

The Renaissance, Jacob Burckhardt once wrote, was a golden age for bastards.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025

"And we will rebuild. No matter what these Russian terrorists and bastards may do, we will rebuild and restore everything," he said.

From Reuters ● Feb. 23, 2023

“Shielded” has its share of stories, too, told with enough passion and eloquence to support Schwartz’s faith in suing the bastards, that great American engine of social change.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 17, 2023

In Dagon’s day a weak king sat the Iron Throne, his rheumy eyes fixed across the narrow sea where bastards and exiles plotted rebellion.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin