STRAGGLING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Straggling

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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."

adjective

Straggling adj. A. & n. from Straggle, v.

See images of 'Straggling'

Etymology of 'Straggling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Straggling" Quotes from Famous Books

... found on each hand low buildings connected by long, white adobe walls, against which grew prickly pears in abundance, running in straggling lines away out upon ...

— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... enough to lose interest in all that was going on, and used to insist upon the others telling her everything that happened outside—who made the biggest score at cricket, what flowers were out in her own straggling patch of garden, how many eggs the fowls laid a day, how the guinea-pigs and canaries were progressing, and what was the very latest thing in clothes or boots the new ...

— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... touched the breast-pocket in which Polly's letters lay—he often carried them out with him to a little hill, on which a single old blue-gum had been left standing; its scraggy top-knot of leaves drooped and swayed in the wind, like the few long straggling hairs on an ...

— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... presenting myself," said Colville, who was watching the little group from the rectory without appearing to do so. He rose as he spoke and went toward the clergyman, who was probably much younger than he looked. For he was ill-dressed and ill-shorn, with straggling grey hair hanging to his collar. He had a musty look, such as a book may have that is laid on a shelf in a deserted room and never opened or read. Septimus Marvin, the world would say, had been laid upon a shelf when he was inducted to the spiritual cure of Farlingford. ...

— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... meet me, and pay me their respects. They had left all the troops behind them, according to my expectations. I received them with caresses, and went with them into the city; and at the very moment my people fell upon their straggling soldiers, Michelotto and his comrades each seized his man. Thus I made myself master of the domains and fortresses of those whom we deceived by pretending to assist them in subduing their enemies. The following night I caused them to be slaughtered in their dungeons. Michelotto, to ...

— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

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