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draggle

[drag-uh l]
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SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR draggle ON THESAURUS.COM

verb (used with object), drag·gled, drag·gling.

to soil by dragging over damp ground or in mud.

verb (used without object), drag·gled, drag·gling.

to trail on the ground; be or become draggled.
to follow slowly; straggle.

Origin of draggle

First recorded in 1490–1500; drag + -le
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for draggle

pull, drag, tow, bedraggle

Examples from the Web for draggle

Historical Examples of draggle

  • 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

to make or become wet or dirty by trailing on the ground; bedraggle
(intr) to lag; dawdle

Word Origin for draggle

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.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper