STRAGGLING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does straggling mean? 

• STRAGGLING (adjective)
  The adjective STRAGGLING has 1 sense:

1. spreading out in different directions or distributed irregularly

  Familiarity information: STRAGGLING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STRAGGLING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Spreading out in different directions or distributed irregularly

Synonyms:

rambling; sprawling; straggling; straggly

Context example:

straggly hair

Similar:

untidy (not neat and tidy)

 Context examples 

The house has been added to, but in a very straggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Here they spread out into a long straggling line of spearmen and bowmen.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“This is the 'Mouton d'Or,'” said Aylward, as they pulled up their horses at a whitewashed straggling hostel.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Address printed in rather straggling characters: ‘Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They passed out through the gates of the park with, straggling in the rear, a second gang, the friends that Lizzie's young man had collected to avenge the loss of his lady.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I saw the outside of the note, addressed in straggling, irregular characters, very unlike Holmes’s usual precise hand.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At his invitation we had taken tea at the vicarage and had come to know, also, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, an independent gentleman, who increased the clergyman’s scanty resources by taking rooms in his large, straggling house.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So saying, he quickened his pace, and the three comrades were soon close to the straggling and broad-spread town which centered round the noble church and the frowning castle.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the Mittel Land ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)