rag doll

noun

1. a stuffed doll, especially of cloth.

Word History and Origins

Origin of rag doll¹

First recorded in 1850–55

Idioms and Phrases

A limp, ineffectual person, as in You won't get a decision from her; she's a rag doll when it comes to making up her mind . This expression transfers the limpness of a soft doll made from scraps of cloth to human behavior. [Mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

She looked healthy, but when her father tried to pick her up, she was just floppy, like a rag doll.

From Nautilus

The bear grabbed him by his left wrist and shook him like a rag doll, hoisting him above the ground with her powerful jaws.

From Outside Online

Kari’s tiny figure looks like a rag doll from a child’s toy chest, soft and pliant, absorbing the brutality of the assault.

From Vox

Bradley Beal contorted his body around Georges Niang, swished an off-balance jumper, drew the foul and fell to the court with a flourish, limbs splayed like a rag doll.

From Washington Post

Then Ziegler tosses the buff LaBeouf around like a rag doll.

From The Daily Beast

The woman who grasped Britain's unions by the neck and hurled them repeatedly against the wall, like some floppy rag doll.

From The Daily Beast

Even one little girl, without so much as a rag doll, can have a play-house.

From Project Gutenberg

On her way she picked up her rag doll, Maria Jane, and the little toy automobile.

From Project Gutenberg

She remembered the little rag doll that Granny had made her when she was a very little girl.

From Project Gutenberg

For all that the Rag Doll didn't think he was coming just then.

From Project Gutenberg

He was engaged in taking from its wrappings a peculiarly hideous rag-doll.

From Project Gutenberg