scraggly
Americanadjective
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irregular; uneven; jagged.
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shaggy; ragged; unkempt.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of scraggly
Explanation
Use the adjective scraggly for anything that's messy, uneven, or sparse — like your teenage cousin's scraggly beard. In England, scraggly (or, alternatively, scraggy) is primarily used to describe a skinny person or animal. North Americans are more likely to talk about the dry, scraggly brush in the desert or their scraggly hair first thing in the morning when they roll out of bed. Related adjectives that are now obsolete included scraggling and scragged, all from a Scandinavian root.
Vocabulary lists containing scraggly
When Sea Becomes Sky
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The Mighty Miss Malone
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Solito: A Memoir
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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.
Scraggly, drooping, wrinkled, half-dead: It’s not a new look for Halloween.
From Washington Post • Oct. 26, 2021
Scraggly work gloves are strewn across the dusty dash of his pickup, a lariat in the side door, surplus Stetsons tossed in the back.
From Time • Jan. 28, 2013
Scraggly grass poked out between the cracks and in the brown dirt around the tree.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
Scraggly trees; thirty, or forty feet high; with trunks one or two feet in diameter.
From The Wild Flowers of California: Their Names, Haunts, and Habits by Parsons, Mary Elizabeth
Scraggly, struggling pine stood here and there among the rocks, but shade was scant.
From I Conquered by Titus, Harold
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.
