raggle-taggle

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English

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Etymology

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Alteration of rag-tag; see also -le.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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raggle-taggle (comparative more raggle-taggle, superlative most raggle-taggle)

  1. Disorderly, in a messy or chaotic state; ragged.
    • 1945 February 5, “Linked at Last”, in Time:
      The cocky little foot soldiers who had mopped up the north Burma jungle saw a knot of blue-grey, raggle-taggle men at the junction and wanted to fire on them.
    • 1998, Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash, Soft Skull Press, published 2012, →ISBN, page 136:
      Gradually, these raggle-taggle remnants of the original counter-culture built up a neo-medieval economy based around crafts, alternative medicine and entertainment: jugglers, acrobats, healers, food vendors, candle makers, clothes sellers, tattooists, piercers, jewellers, and drug pedlars.
    • 2000, George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords, Bantam, published 2011, page 574:
      The raggle-taggle host of freedmen dwarfed her own, but they were more burden than benefit.
    • 2011 March 22, Simon Jenkins, The Guardian:
      The prime minister must know that the only way to achieve his stated goal is to topple Gaddafi, and his intelligence will have informed him that the raggle-taggle army in Benghazi cannot do it for him.