bedraggle

[bih-drag-uhl]

verb (used with object)

bedraggled, bedraggling 

1. to make limp and soiled, as with rain or dirt.

bedraggle

/ bɪˈdræɡəl /

verb

1. (tr) to make (hair, clothing, etc) limp, untidy, or dirty, as with rain or mud

Word History and Origins

Origin of bedraggle¹

First recorded in 1720–30; be- + draggle

Example Sentences

With the new clothes they could not afford now rumpled and covered with grit, the bedraggled Babushkinovs and their quiet but unusually alert governess arrived in Saint Petersburg at last.

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Her over-romanticized vision of life across the pond, fueled by love stories like “Sense and Sensibility” set in pastoral England, starts out more bedraggled than charmed.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

"There's always people looking a little bedraggled who just want something filling and probably with a vegetable in it," Ayesha Kalaji, from restaurant Queen of Cups said.

Read more on BBC

The final scoreline almost did a kindness to a bedraggled Inter, such was PSG's dominance and the sheer number of chances they created.

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Hawkins lets herself get vulnerable, too, and the film never fakes a punch by pretending she’s anything more than a small, desperate and bedraggled woman with eyes that look like a bottomless well of need.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• besmirch 
• contaminate 
• debase 
• degrade 
• muddy 
• pollute 
• smear 
• smudge 
• sully 
• taint 
• tar 
• tarnish