haggard

comparative more haggard · superlative most haggard

1. Looking exhausted, worried, or poor in condition

   Pale and haggard faces.

   5 more examples

   A gradual descent into a haggard and feeble state.

   The years of hardship made her look somewhat haggard.

   Staring his eyes, and haggard was his look.

   1685, John Dryden, The Despairing Lover

   Then there was a pale, care-wrinkled woman, not old, but haggard, and already with streaks of gray among her hair, like silver ribbons; one of those women, naturally delicate, whom you at once recognize as worn to death by a brute—probably, a drunken brute—of a husband, and at least nine children.

   1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC

   I looked at the morning / After being up all night / I looked at my haggard face in the bathroom light / I looked out the window / And I saw that ragged soul take flight

   1976, Joni Mitchell, “Black Crow”, in Hejira

   Synonyms: careworn, drawn, raddled, worn-out

2. Wild or untamed

   a haggard or refractory hawk

plural haggards

1. falconryA hunting bird captured as an adult.

   1856, John Henry Walsh, Manual of British Rural Sports HAGGARDS may be trapped in this country but with the square-net, or the bow-net, but in either case great difficulty is experienced

   1 more example

   No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock.

   1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]

2. falconryA young or untrained hawk or falcon.
3. obsoleteA fierce, intractable creature.

   I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.

   c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]

4. obsoleteA hag.

   In a dark Grott the baleful Haggard lay, Breathing black Vengeance, and infecting Day

   1699, Samuel Garth, The Dispensary

plural haggards

1. IrelandScotlanddialectalIsle of ManA stackyard, an enclosure on a farm for stacking grain, hay, etc.

   He tuk a slew [swerve] round the haggard http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/am1924/pt_s.htm

   1 more example

   "Well, you see, Thady, we'd a powerful great harvist uv it, you know, this year, an' the min all worked like jewels, as they are; an' the masther was in great sperits, an' he promis'd he'd give us all a grand dinner whin the dhrawin'-in was over, an' the corn all safe in the haggard.

   1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 514

plural Haggards · alternative Haggart

1. A surname.
2. An unincorporated community in Gray County, Kansas, United States.