straggle
/ˈstraɡ(ə)l
/verb [no object, usually with adverbial of direction]
1(Of an irregular group of people) move along slowly so as to remain some distance behind the person or people in front: the children straggled behind them (as adjective straggling) the straggling crowd of refugees...
- We could see a group straggling behind, and then things got nasty; this was when several people were arrested and police dogs were used.
- At 6pm, Masters, rum in pocket, swaggers down the street like a dishevelled Pied Piper with about 60 young devotees straggling along behind him.
- As the group straggled in, curious as to why they were contacted, they saw that Ken and Amy were already sitting at the table.
Synonyms
trail, lag, dawdle, amble, wander, walk slowly, meander, drift;
fall behind, bring up the rear;
be strung out
1.1Grow, spread, or be laid out in an irregular, untidy way: her hair was straggling over her eyes...
- It grows to about 60 cm high, and is best raised annually from seed or cuttings as it soon starts to straggle and look unattractively untidy.
- They were dressed as most bikers do, in leather, blue jeans, helmets, sun glasses, long, greasy hair straggling over the edge of their collars, scruffy moustaches and beards covering their faces.
- Her sari was torn, her hair straggling, her fingernails ruined.
Synonyms
grow untidily, be messy, be dishevelled, be unkempt
spread irregularly, sprawl, be scattered, be dispersed
noun
An untidy or irregularly arranged mass or group: a straggle of cottages...
- He returns to the place of his childhood holidays on the Gold Coast to find that the straggle of fibro cottages has given way to rows of anonymous high-rise apartments.
- Armed with 18th century maps he showed me the straggle of ruined cottages once occupied by poor country folk who worked for a pittance on local farms.
- Worth visiting amongst a plethora of architectural gems are the palace, the tollbooth and the abbey but most enjoyable of all, are the little houses, randomly set against each other in an untidy straggle up the winding lanes.
Derivatives
straggler
/ noun ...- The majority have returned to breeding grounds by late March, but stragglers have lingered locally until the end of May.
- The library was nearly deserted except for a few stragglers checking out books or reading in corners.
- No, the last stragglers, the tourists and the visitors, have now left the palace.
Origin
Late Middle English: perhaps from dialect strake 'go'.