STRAGGLE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Straggle

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/strˈægəl/ Listen

noun

Straggle n. The act of straggling. (R.)

verb

Straggle v. i. (past & past part. straggled; pres. part. straggling)

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; as, when troops are on the march, the men should not straggle.

To wander at large; to roam idly about; to ramble. "The wolf spied out a straggling kid."

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. "Trim off the small, superfluous branches on each side of the hedge that straggle too far out."

To be dispersed or separated; to occur at intervals. "Straggling pistol shots." "They came between Scylla and Charybdis and the straggling rocks."

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Etymology of 'Straggle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Straggle" Quotes from Famous Books

... a brief holiday from the trenches in a cantonment near the field, straggle forward and gather timidly about the airplane, listening open-mouthed for what its rider ...

— Flying for France • James R. McConnell

... I can get out of him except more chuckles. I files away the name, though; and that afternoon, while we was waitin' for a quorum of directors to straggle into the General Offices, I springs it on ...

— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... Mosel. The cottage looks like the dilapidated lodge of an old monastery, and here, at least, is no trimness. Two walls with a flight of steps in each enclose a grass terrace between them, and trees and bushes straggle to the edge of the river, hardly keeping clear of the swinging rope. Coracles are sometimes used for ferrying—also punts. Bangor is a familiar name to students of church history, and to those who are not, the startling tale of the massacre of twelve hundred British monks by the ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... the regular routine; the fresh men were all drawn up now, armed, the order given, and the relieved tramped into the guard-room and soon began to straggle out again, eager to troop over to a kind of buttery-hatch by the great kitchen, where a mug of milk and a hunch of bread for a refresher would be waiting for distribution, by Lady ...

— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... long hour passed. The bit of wreck that was jammed between the rocks went to pieces and came ashore. Ben's mate came with it, but no Noll. The men began to straggle homeward, weary and worn with the night's vigil, till only Dirk and Hark Darby were left to keep the stricken master of the stone house company. Oh, such a weary waiting it was!—the ceaseless pouring of the waves upon the sand filling their ears ...

— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

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