pugilist ˈpyü-jə-list noun
: someone who fights with fists for sport
_________
The word pugilist has appeared in 59 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on July 1 in “Martin Sorrell Wants to Build a New Ad Empire. Please Don’t Call It Revenge” by David Segal:
If the story line of “Mad Men” had stretched into the late 1980s, there would have been a character based on Martin Sorrell. He would have been a coiled, determined and thin-skinned British man in his early 40s — part pugilist; part charmer — and he would have incensed ad agency honchos by acquiring their companies in hostile takeovers. Four real-life agencies mentioned in the show — Young & Rubicam, Grey, Ogilvy and J. Walter Thompson — were eventually snapped up by WPP.
_________