Meaning of draggle-tailed | Babel Free

Definitions

Slatternly, untidy, unkempt.

Examples

“And yet by the way, as one sometime demanded of one of his complices, How it came to pass⟳, that they, who take⟳ upon them by the Stars, to tel everie draggle-tail’d Girl that comes to them to enquire after a Silver Spoon lost, what was become⟳ of it, and which way it was gone; yet could not by their star-skil foresee⟳ and foretel the Scotch Kings defeat⟳ at Worcester […]”

“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.”

“[A] cock and two or three draggle-tailed hens were composing themselves to roost on the front portion of the cart between the shafts.”

“Never lose⟳ a chance: it doesnt come⟳ everyday. I shall make⟳ a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe.”

“You sound⟳ like⟳ you have⟳ been to college even. You sound⟳ almost like⟳ a Northerner even, not like⟳ the draggle-tailed women of those Delta peckerwoods.”

“A year before my return⟳ Elwood had swapped his old truck for this draggle-tailed creature. He was pleased with the deal⟳—a whole mule for a broken-down truck that had to be removed from the farm in several hundred rusting pieces.”

CEFR level