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draggle

[drag-uh l]
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verb (used with object), drag·gled, drag·gling.
  1. to soil by dragging over damp ground or in mud.
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verb (used without object), drag·gled, drag·gling.
  1. to trail on the ground; be or become draggled.
  2. to follow slowly; straggle.
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Origin of draggle

First recorded in 1490–1500; drag + -le
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for draggle

Historical Examples

  • It goes right hard with her to draggle her skirts in the dewy strawberry beds; but she feels consoled when I fetch up the till!

    Idle Hour Stories

    Eugenia Dunlap Potts

  • She feels it due to this same principle to draggle her skirts through the mud, to get her feet wet, and to come home an "object."

  • A few feet from the coach the water appeared to deepen, and the bear-skin to draggle.

  • I have nothing to do with such milk-sop organizations, or the donkeys that draggle at their heels.

    Eventide

    Effie Afton

  • Still, somewhere under the huddle and draggle of it all burned on the human soul.

    The Way of a Man

    Emerson Hough

British Dictionary definitions for draggle

draggle

verb
  1. to make or become wet or dirty by trailing on the ground; bedraggle
  2. (intr) to lag; dawdle
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Word Origin

C16: probably frequentative of drag
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for draggle

v.

1510s, frequentative of drag (v.). This led to draggle-tail "sloppy woman, woman whose skirts are wet and draggled" (1590s). Related: Draggled.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper