raggle-taggle

comparative more raggle-taggle · superlative most raggle-taggle

1. Disorderly, in a messy or chaotic state; ragged.

   The raggle-taggle host of freedmen dwarfed her own, but they were more burden than benefit.

   2000 August 8, George R[aymond] R[ichard] Martin, “Daenerys [Targaryen]”, in A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire; 3), London: Voyager, →ISBN, page 475

   3 more examples

   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.

   1945 February 5, “Linked at Last”, in Time

   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.

   1998, Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash, Soft Skull Press, published 2012, →ISBN, page 136

   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.

   2011 March 22, Simon Jenkins, The Guardian