ZebraWords.com - The Definition of 'Straggling', Synonyms of 'Straggling' & More on 'Straggling'

1. WordNet® 3.0 (2006)

straggling
    adj 1: spreading out in different directions; "sprawling
           handwriting"; "straggling branches"; "straggly hair"
           [syn: sprawling, straggling, rambling, straggly]

2. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Straggle \Strag"gle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Straggled; p. pr. &
   vb. n. Straggling.] [Freq. of OE. straken to roam, to
   stroke. See Stroke, v. t.]
   1. 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. --Dryden.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To wander at large; to roam idly about; to ramble.
      [1913 Webster]

            The wolf spied out a straggling kid.  --L'Estrange.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. 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.
      [1913 Webster]

            Trim off the small, superfluous branches on each
            side of the hedge that straggle too far out.
                                                  --Mortimer.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. To be dispersed or separated; to occur at intervals.
      "Straggling pistol shots." --Sir W. Scott.
      [1913 Webster]

            They came between Scylla and Charybdis and the
            straggling rocks.                     --Sir W.
                                                  Raleigh.
      [1913 Webster]

3. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Straggling \Strag"gling\,
   a. & n. from Straggle, v.
   [1913 Webster]

Thesaurus Results for straggling:

1. Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

aimless, amorphous, broadcast, capricious, casual, circumforaneous, desultory, diffuse, disarticulated, discontinuous, discrete, discursive, disjunct, disordered, dispersed, dispread, disproportionate, disseminated, dissipated, distributed, divagatory, dragged out, drawn, drawn out, drifting, elongated, errant, erratic, extended, fitful, flitting, floating, footloose, footloose and fancy-free, formless, frivolous, fugitive, gadding, gratuitous, gypsy-like, gypsyish, haphazard, hit-or-miss, immethodical, inchoate, incoherent, indiscriminate, irregular, landloping, lengthened, meandering, meaningless, migrational, migratory, misshapen, nomad, nomadic, nonsymmetrical, nonsystematic, nonuniform, orderless, planless, prolongated, prolonged, promiscuous, protracted, pulled, rambling, random, ranging, roaming, roving, scattered, senseless, shapeless, shifting, sparse, spasmodic, sporadic, spread, spun out, straggly, strained, straying, stretched, stretched out, strewn, strolling, strown, strung out, systemless, taut, tense, tight, traipsing, transient, transitory, transmigratory, unarranged, unclassified, undirected, ungraded, unjoined, unmethodical, unordered, unorganized, unsorted, unsymmetrical, unsystematic, ununiform, vagabond, vagrant, vague, wandering, widespread

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