Drabble-tail

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A draggle-tail; a prostitute or promiscuous woman.

    "Whose tinsel robes of tawdry language trail, Slatterns in fine attire, a drabble tail; Whose monft'rous thoughts, diminutive and vile, Seem pigmy pages to a giant style;"

  2. 2
    An untidy person; a general term of contempt.

    "Jinx said to Bubber [a male character]– "Aw go 'haid, drabble[-]tail. Ain' nobody studyin' yo' family.""

  3. 3
    A mess; something bedraggled or cheaply made.

    "Ngarara went in, and mistaking the post for Ruru, encircled it with the drabbletail of her dress."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Ragtag.

    "What was ailing this ordinarily competent musical flock that they should have languished into such a straggly, drabbletail gathering of barnyard fowl?"

Example

More examples

"Whose tinsel robes of tawdry language trail, Slatterns in fine attire, a drabble tail; Whose monft'rous thoughts, diminutive and vile, Seem pigmy pages to a giant style;"

Etymology

From drabble (“to make wet and dirty by dragging through the mud”) + tail.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.