straggly

[strag-lee]

adjective

stragglier, straggliest 

1. straggling; rambling.

Word History and Origins

Origin of straggly¹

First recorded in 1865–70; straggle + -y ¹

Example Sentences

A white man with grey, straggly hair stroked his bearded chin.

Read more on BBC

His beard - brown and trim when I first encountered him in the besieged Donbas town of Lysychansk in 2022 - is now straggly and grey.

Read more on BBC

Flip this folded dough over so the seam is on the bottom, smooshing in any straggly bits, and sprinkling flour over any naked chunks of butter or otherwise sticky spots.

Read more on Washington Post

A soft, golden light filtered through twisted trees draped with a straggly yellow-green lichen called “old man’s beard,” giving the glens a magical air.

Read more on Washington Post

Frequent gripes were that the hill was not high enough to see over trees in nearby Hyde Park, rendering obsolete the "viewing" platform, and that the plants and grass were straggly and patchy.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• contaminated www.thesaurus.com
• crummy 
• disheveled 
• dusty 
• filthy 
• greasy 
• grimy 
• messy 
• muddy 
• murky 
• nasty 
• polluted 
• sloppy 
• stained www.thesaurus.com
• unkempt