Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person wearing ragged or tattered clothing; a ragamuffin.
- adj. Ragged; tattered.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A ragged fellow.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A ragged fellow; a ragamuffin.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a dirty shabbily clothed urchin
- adj. worn to shreds; or wearing torn or ragged clothing
- adj. in deplorable condition
Etymologies
- Probably tattered + -demalion, of unknown meaning.
Examples
“The exact origin of "tatterdemalion" is uncertain, but it's probably connected to either the noun "tatter" ( "a torn scrap or shred") or the adjective "tattered”
“I envisioned traps, snares, pits, poisons, even the construction of some kind of tatterdemalion designed to terrify beavers.”
“Within half a dozen years of the first appearance of "tatterdemalion," it came to be used as an adjective to describe anything or anyone ragged or disreputable.”
“We do know that "tatterdemalion" has been used in print since the 1600s.”
“s, the male maid of the Grammer-Hodge m nage, who is madly funny and has the best legs in the show; and the eight-piece orchestra, which sounds just like the kind of tatterdemalion band you'd hear in a French strip joint.”
“But its tatterdemalion presence relieved her, and her face jerked up scarlet.”
“And everyone's evaluations of me as a deLintian tatterdemalion impish fey girl, and the whole libido-faerie thing SJ and I were giggling about recently, and ...”
“But that a tatterdemalion out of the night should invade the sanctity of her kitchen-kingdom and delay dinner while she set a place for him in the warmest corner, was a matter of such moment that the Sunflower went to see.”
“Sprawled out on the hatch were five or six men, among them Larry, the tatterdemalion who had called him "old stiff" earlier in the afternoon.”
“Mr. Davies disapproves of the fevered effusions in Robert J. Casey's "The Lost Kingdom of Burgundy," published in 1928, with passages such as: "The kingdom lives because its motley kings, tatterdemalion warriors, guitar playing swashbucklers and mace wielding choristers have refused to remain in their moldy tombs.”
The Wall Street Journal: Sovereignty and the Pitiless Passage of Time
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tatterdemalion’.
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Nincompoopery
Words that clatter and tumble
nincompoop, pettyfoggery, gaberlunzie, cattywampus, weisenheimer, katzenjammer, hecklephone, loblolly, carriwitchet, flibbertyjibbet, hornswoggle, thimblerigger and 159 more...
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Things Foxes Do
Behaviors you might expect from a character in Fantastic Mr Fox.
abscond, outwit, fox, ransack, turn tables, dig, sneak, vixens, baffle, tatterdemalion, aboiement, sneckdraw and 1 more...
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Amos.Oz's list
"I am very concerned with the state of words. Words keep me up at night."
~Stacy Piestarantism, lucubration, psychopomp, wlatsome, logolept, hypnogogic, aphenphosmphobia, ataraxia, huggles, lucubration, sennight, plumicorn and 10 more...
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soma's list
esprit d'escalier, triskelion, borborygmus, lalochezia, pareidolia, octothorpe, pandiculation, semihemidemisemiq..., phosphenes, lucent, seraphim, phantasmagoria and 8 more...
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jeffrey.t.whitney's list
sartorial, sabbatarian, sagacious, desiccate, ersatz, insouciant, atavistic, luddite, crwth, obdurate, stentorian, ruminate and 51 more...
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Great Words
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Blood Meridian
Or, Evening Redness in the West.
parallax, ciboleros, pyrolatrous, tatterdemalion, enfilade, fond, ciborium, holothurian, archimandrite, thaumaturge
bilby Uff, don't hold back, James. Sep 17, 2008
brtom "Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry ..." Joyce, Ulysses, 15 Dec 31, 2007