bedraggled
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of bedraggled
Explanation
If you're bedraggled, you're dishevelled, limp, and tired. Many people are a bit bedraggled after a very long plane flight. New parents who spend much of the night awake with a crying baby often look a little bedraggled, and so do travelers and students during finals week. Bedraggled people haven't gotten enough sleep and aren't quite as pulled together and polished as they might like to be. Bedraggled is an 18th-century word, from the now-obsolete verb bedraggle, combining be and draggle, "make wet and dirty" or "lag behind."
Vocabulary lists containing bedraggled
Surviving Hitler
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Raining Cats and Dogs
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Uglies
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Florida is in the midst of its worst drought in 25 years, but the dry spell actually ranked far down on the list of challenges these bedraggled growers were facing.
From Slate • Apr. 20, 2026
Our fellow travelers along the I-95 corridor comprised a particularly vibrant cross-section of American society, including many bedraggled participants of Daytona’s Bike Week, trailering their baggers and dressers home.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 4, 2026
But bedraggled residents who spoke to the BBC near Lacey last week said they felt the workers' absence during the strike.
From BBC • Jul. 26, 2025
He bought a bedraggled old place called the Caravan Lodge and dubbed it the Phoenix, with Miss Pearl’s Jam House as its on-site restaurant and bar.
From Los Angeles Times • May 15, 2025
He looked round at his bedraggled, shivering comrades and then at Kehaar, spruce and brisk on the stern.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
