Thursday, November 1, 2012
draggle \DRAG-uhl\, verb
1. To soil by dragging over damp ground or in mud.
2. To trail on the ground; be or become draggled.
3. To follow slowly; straggle.
No skirts to hold up, or to draggle their wet folds against my ankles; no stifling veil flapping in my face,
and blinding my eyes; no umbrella to turn inside out, but instead, the cool rain driving slap into my face…
-- Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall and Other Writing
You can't run through the streets after the water baths in that thing you draggle around the house.
-- Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, Anya
Draggle is obviously related to this more common word drag. It entered English in the late 1400s. The
suffix -le is a verb formation from Middle English, also seen in dazzle and twinkle, among others.
