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  1. bedraggled love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Wet; limp.
  2. adj. Soiled by or as if by having been dragged through mud.
  3. adj. Being in a condition of deterioration; dilapidated: a street of bedraggled tenements.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. wet and limp; unkempt
  2. adj. decaying, decrepit or dilapidated
  3. v. Simple past tense and past participle of bedraggle.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. in deplorable condition
  2. adj. limp and soiled as if dragged in the mud

Examples

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘bedraggled’.

Comments

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  • rolig Thanks, Pro! It's interesting how some words are only used in certain contexts. Mar 28, 2013

  • Prolagus Hello to you!
    You are right in that it means "drenched in sweat"; this particular word for "drenched", however, is hardly ever used in any context other than that of exhaustion. That's what I meant - it seems to incorporate both senses of bedraggled in the mind of an Italian reader. Mar 27, 2013

  • rolig Pro! First - Hi! It's been a long time.
    Second: Is that any different from saying "drenched in sweat"?
    Third: I always associate "bedraggled" with being wet, though being in a generally miserable-looking state is essential too. It would sound strange to me to say: "Gene Kelly was cheerfully bedraggled as he celebrated the joys of crooning in precipitation." Mar 27, 2013

  • Prolagus @Frog: madido di sudore! Mar 27, 2013

  • frogapplause @Pro. What a tease. You tell us there is a word in Italian that incorporates both exhaustion and sweat, then you don't share it. Mar 26, 2013

  • fbharjo B S & T (drag(gled) is the operative word.) Mar 26, 2013

  • yarb I like reesetee's "bed-raggled". I can well imagine how an intense twelve-hour sleep could raggle a person, top to bottom. Mar 26, 2013

  • Prolagus I'll go with something along the lines of "covered in sweat", then. There's an Italian word that incorporates both exhaustion and sweat. (Ew!)
    Thanks! <3 Mar 26, 2013

  • ruzuzu Those definitions surprised me. In my mind it's definitely in the exhausted family--but exhausted the way a mouse is when a cat's been playing with it. Mar 26, 2013

  • Prolagus "Four bedraggled porters came through the door, each one staggering under a huge load. They hauled a collection of trunks and large canvas bags."
    Given that there is no reference to the luggage being wet or soiled anywhere in the chapter, and that these are the porters of a moody and tyrannical woman, am I right in assuming the word is used to mean something like "exhausted/in poor conditions"? Or maybe "covered in sweat"? Mar 26, 2013

  • reesetee Ah, SoG, you think like I do. This scares me. Oct 14, 2007

  • sonofgroucho Who's to say your previous pronunciation is wrong? Oct 14, 2007

  • reesetee Talk about mispronouncing--when I was a kid, I thought this word was BED-raggled. I always wondered what raggling was and how a bed could do it to you. Oct 13, 2007

  • sonofgroucho Sounds like it should accompany bewitched, bothered and bewildered. Oct 13, 2007

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‘bedraggled’ has been looked up 2514 times, loved by 5 people, added to 40 lists, commented on 15 times, and has a Scrabble score of 16.