bedraggle
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Etymology
Origin of bedraggle
Explanation
Bedraggle is a verb that means to make disheveled, wet, and dirty. Rain and mud bedraggle children who go tromping through the outdoors in their dressiest clothes right before family pictures. Bedraggle is a word that was probably very common in the early 1700s when people started using it. If a lady walked along the old, unpaved streets, it would bedraggle the bottom of her hoop skirt, and a gentleman might have set his coat down for her to walk on. Today we're more likely to use verbs like drench or soil instead, and, for the most part, to wear more sensible clothes.
Vocabulary lists containing bedraggle
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The House of the Spirits
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Copper Sun
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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.
See Examples For:
But Mathews had no Judge Lawlack to bedraggle justice for his sake.
From The Squatter and the Don by Loyal, C.
Here in town, she probably preferred to tread the extent of the two drawing-rooms, and measure out the miles by spaces of forty feet, rather than bedraggle her skirts over the sloppy pavements.
From The Blithedale Romance by Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Instead of cultivating your graces you bedraggle them with labor!
From For Gold or Soul? The Story of a Great Department Store by Sheldon, Lurana W.
But no blast can chill its wings, no mire bedraggle, or rude touch fray.
From Sister Dolorosa and Posthumous Fame by Allen, James Lane
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
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.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2025
We caught it with our mouths and laughed at one another, at how ridiculous we looked, three bedraggled kids sticking our tongues out at the sky.
From "Adrift" by Paul Griffin
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.
