bedraggled

English

WOTD – 22 February 2017

A Himalayan cat looking bedraggled (sense 1) after being bathed

Etymology

bedraggle +‎ -ed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɪˈdɹæɡl̩d/

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: be‧drag‧gled

Adjective

bedraggled (comparative more bedraggled, superlative most bedraggled)

1. Wet and limp; unkempt.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, “The Chase.—Third Day.”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 30847311; republished as Moby Dick or The White Whale (Famous Sea Stories), Boston, Mass.: The St. Botolph Society, 53 Beacon Street, 1892 (8th printing, February 1922), OCLC 237074, page 527:

     A low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea.

2. Decaying, decrepit or dilapidated.
   • 1919, H[ector] H[ugh] Munro (Saki), “The Occasional Garden”, in The Toys of Peace and Other Papers, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head; New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, →OCLC, page 239:

     She is only coming to gloat over my bedraggled and flowerless borders and to sing the praises of her own detestably over-cultivated garden. I'm sick of being told that it's the envy of the neighbourhood; it's like everything else that belongs to her—her car, her dinner-parties, even her headaches, they are all superlative; no one else ever had anything like them.

Synonyms

• (decaying, decrepit or dilapidated): See Thesaurus:ramshackle

Derived terms

• bedraggledly
• bedraggledness

Related terms

• bedraggle
• draggled
• draggle-tail
• draggle-tailed

Translations

unkempt

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 全身湿透的, 满身泥污的

• Czech: urousaný, umolousaný
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Greek: ατημέλητος (el) (atimélitos)
• Irish: aimlithe, draoibeáilte, giobach, sraoilleach, úcaiste, útamáilte
• Maori: hūtotoi, hūtoitoi

Verb

bedraggled

1. simple past and past participle of bedraggle.