Standard Lemma guide

draggle-tailed

adj · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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  • /ˈdɹæɡl̩ˌteɪld/
  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Slatternly, untidy, unkempt.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Qualifier: or of clothing

Examples

  • 1830, William Hazlitt, Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A., London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, “Conversation the Fourth,” p. 51, Every thing of that sort appears to be at present no better than it is with us in a country-town: or rather it wants the simplicity and rustic innocence, and is more like the draggled-tailed finery of a lady’s waiting-maid.
  • 1840, Walt Whitman, letter to Abraham P. Leech dated 11 August, 1840, in Ted Genoways (ed.), Walt Whitman: The Correspondence, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004, Volume 7, p. 3, [...] probably all the whig enthusiasm generated on that occasion was melted down again by this unlucky shower, for we passed loads of forlorn gentlemen, with draggle-tailed coats, crest-fallen hats, and sour-looking phizzes. — The mighty patriotism they felt was drowned by a tormenting slipperiness of coat, shirt, and pantaloons.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Taken from draggle (“net drawn along the bottom of the water for fishing”), this was originally applied to women whose dresses dragged along the ground behind them.