Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To move or proceed slowly or in a scattered or irregular group.
- intransitive verb To move or lag behind another or others.
- intransitive verb To extend or be spread out.
- intransitive verb To hang limply or loosely.
- noun A scattered or disorderly group, as of people or things.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To rough-dress (a stone for grinding) by a wriggling motion of the dressing-tool, so as to give a roughened surface; rag.
- To roam or wander away, or become separated, as from one's companions or the direct course or way; stray.
- To roam or wander at random, or without any certain direction or object; ramble.
- To escape or stretch out ramblingly or beyond proper limits; spread widely apart; shoot too far in growth.
- To be dispersed; be apart from any main body; stand alone; be isolated; occur at intervals or apart from one another; occur here and there: as, the houses straggle all over the district.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun rare The act of straggling.
- intransitive verb To wander from the direct course or way; to rove; to stray; to wander from the line of march or desert the line of battle.
- intransitive verb To wander at large; to roam idly about; to ramble.
- intransitive verb To escape or stretch beyond proper limits, as the branches of a plant; to spread widely apart; to shoot too far or widely in growth.
- intransitive verb To be dispersed or separated; to occur at intervals.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
stray from the road, course or line of march. - verb To
wander about;ramble . - verb To
spread at irregular intervals. - noun The act of straggling.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a wandering or disorderly grouping (of things or persons)
- verb wander from a direct or straight course
- verb go, come, or spread in a rambling or irregular way
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Two years later in the crisis of October 1993, it took only a few tank shells to flush a straggle of defiant Supreme Soviet deputies out of the White House.
The Return Daniel Treisman 2011
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He wanted to resume the retreat on the 12th, but destroying supplies and equipment took too much time, and the wounded continued to straggle into camp.
George Washington’s First War David A. Clary 2011
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Before we review our final round of polling forecasts based on whatever final polls straggle in this morning, let's take a few minutes to ponder that question a little more carefully.
Could The Polls In Election 2010 Be Wrong? The Huffington Post News Team 2010
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Bush had confidently predicted that the Iraqi "troops will straggle home with no armor, beaten up, 50,000," but they were more numerous than that, and they had extricated lots of armor.
Geoffrey Wawro: Desert Storm Turns Twenty: What Really Happened in 1991, and Why it Matters, Part II of II Geoffrey Wawro 2011
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Before we review our final round of polling forecasts based on whatever final polls straggle in this morning, let's take a few minutes to ponder that question a little more carefully.
Could The Polls In Election 2010 Be Wrong? The Huffington Post News Team 2010
-
Before we review our final round of polling forecasts based on whatever final polls straggle in this morning, let's take a few minutes to ponder that question a little more carefully.
Could The Polls In Election 2010 Be Wrong? The Huffington Post News Team 2010
-
He wanted to resume the retreat on the 12th, but destroying supplies and equipment took too much time, and the wounded continued to straggle into camp.
George Washington’s First War David A. Clary 2011
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Sailors straggle back from their nights out on the town
Archive 2009-04-01 Lou Anders 2009
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She just kept walking, one canvas-clad foot in front of the other, looking sideways at the sunlit ripple of water, gleaming Lincoln memorial in front, straggle of Canada geese strewn on the grass, and then down at Suraiya's feet, clad sensibly today in only half-inch heels, in special consideration of their lunch-time walk on the Mall.
For the Sake of the Boy Ramola D 2011
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Bush had confidently predicted that the Iraqi "troops will straggle home with no armor, beaten up, 50,000," but they were more numerous than that, and they had extricated lots of armor.
Geoffrey Wawro: Desert Storm Turns Twenty: What Really Happened in 1991, and Why it Matters, Part II of II Geoffrey Wawro 2011
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