straggle
Americanverb (used without object)
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to spread or be spread in a scattered fashion or at irregular intervals.
The trees straggle over the countryside.
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to lag behind others.
Some organizations have caught on to this concept, but others are straggling behind.
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to stray from the road, course, or line of march.
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to wander about in a scattered fashion; ramble.
verb
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to go, come, or spread in a rambling or irregular way; stray
-
to linger behind or wander from a main line or part
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stragglesimple
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stragglessimple
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have straggledperfect
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has straggledperfect
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am stragglingprogressive
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are stragglingprogressive
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is stragglingprogressive
-
have been stragglingperfect progressive
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has been stragglingperfect progressive
Past
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straggledsimple
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had straggledperfect
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was stragglingprogressive
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were stragglingprogressive
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had been stragglingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of straggle
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English straglen, of uncertain origin, perhaps a variant of strackle (unrecorded), frequentative of obsolete strake “to go, move” ( see -le ( def. )); cf. stagger ( def. )
Explanation
To straggle is to wander in an indirect, meandering way. Lions often go for the small antelopes that straggle behind the herd. To straggle is to veer from a route, or to wander aimlessly behind everyone else. If you plan to go to the movies but end up at a store and then a friend's house, you straggled. Straggling is a type of digressing — to straggle is to get sidetracked. In the military, straggling often means to stay on leave too long or be in the wrong position for a battle. When people straggle, they've gone off-course.
Vocabulary lists containing straggle
The Hobbit
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myPerspectives 8.1
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The Stranger
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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 the stragglers may not be able to straggle much longer: Bans on the chemicals are coming.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2023
Might Rory McIlroy end his nutty straggle through his major-golf desert here?
From Washington Post ● May 19, 2022
The move comes as lawmakers straggle back to Washington for an abbreviated preelection session, as hopes are dimming for another coronavirus relief bill — or much else.”
From Fox News ● Sep. 8, 2020
He’s glad tourists are scarcer too, even though they still straggle past on their way north to self-quarantines and social distancing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 19, 2020
They straggle away, in twos and threes or by themselves.
From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
Thirty miles south, Old Lighthouse Road straggles to an end in a waterside housing development where air conditioning units sit on raised platforms.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 28, 2021
Second, he never wore his hair in long blond straggles, like a stoner Messiah; that, however, is the style favored by Moondog, as an accompaniment to his cacophonous shirts and his silver Ugg boots.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 29, 2019
It straggles, it is too long, but it has some of Bean's brio.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 31, 2013
Juneau still straggles with dingy, narrow streets from the roaring gold-rush times.
From Time Magazine Archive
I stressed to the assembled press the need for mutual communication and support between the Africans and Afro- Americans whose straggles were interlocked.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
The crowd straggled toward City Hall, where Kauffman launched into his speech.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 8, 2026
Two days later, she straggled back to their camp, announced she had met her soul mate in a meditation circle and left in the other guy’s car.
From New York Times ● May 1, 2020
Now, day after day, he and the other students straggled into their classroom at 11:30 a.m.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 23, 2020
We opened the play in Florida, on Inauguration Day, and people just straggled into the theater.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 5, 2017
One by one, the pilots and navigators of the 588th eventually straggled into their new airfield.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
"It was really challenging straggling down the rock faces to get to this shoreline and count all the plastic that was there," she said.
From BBC ● Nov. 16, 2022
In New York City, a monument production hub less than a century ago — where now only a few straggling businesses remain, including just two full-service companies — this was not good news.
From New York Times ● Mar. 3, 2022
“Usually, you have to call somebody, somebody might be doing something different, come in straggling from special teams or something,” Morris said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2022
Now that nearly all the straggling ballots have been counted, it’s worth looking at what really stood out in the totals for Seattle’s key 2021 races.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 12, 2021
Snape was wringing his hands: He looked a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him.
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
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.
