Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Keep "draggle-tailed" when the sentence already sounds natural, when a synonym would add unintended emphasis, or when readers need the most familiar wording. A synonym should clarify or sharpen the message, not simply make the sentence look more varied.
If two options seem close, choose the one that best matches the audience and purpose of the sentence.
Choose a synonym only if it keeps the core idea of "draggle-tailed" intact in the sentence you are editing.
Check whether the replacement sounds more formal, casual, emotional, technical, or forceful than the original word.
Read the full sentence after the swap. Keep the synonym only when the sentence becomes clearer or more precise.
Review note: Synonym lists are ranked with lexical data and reviewed for practical writing value. Use the comparison notes, sentence evidence, and source labels together; a high-ranking synonym can still be wrong when the audience, register, or grammar changes.
After choosing a replacement for "draggle-tailed", read the sentence once for meaning and once for rhythm. The best synonym should feel natural in the full sentence, not only accurate in a word list.
If the synonym makes the sentence slower, vaguer, or more dramatic than intended, keep "draggle-tailed" or choose a simpler alternative from the closest-match group.
7 total sentences available.
And yet by the way, as one sometime demanded of one of his complices, How it came to pass, that they, who take upon them by the Stars, to tel everie draggle-tail’d Girl that comes to them to enquire after a Silver Spoon lost, what was become of it, and which way it was gone; yet could not by their star-skil foresee and foretel the Scotch Kings defeat at Worcester […]
Source: wiktionary
1830, William Hazlitt, Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A., London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, “Conversation the Fourth,” p. 51, Every thing of that sort appears to be at present no better than it is with us in a country-town: or rather it wants the simplicity and rustic innocence, and is more like the draggled-tailed finery of a lady’s waiting-maid.
Source: wiktionary
1840, Walt Whitman, letter to Abraham P. Leech dated 11 August, 1840, in Ted Genoways (ed.), Walt Whitman: The Correspondence, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004, Volume 7, p. 3, […] probably all the whig enthusiasm generated on that occasion was melted down again by this unlucky shower, for we passed loads of forlorn gentlemen, with draggle-tailed coats, crest-fallen hats, and sour-looking phizzes. — The mighty patriotism they felt was drowned by a tormenting slipperiness of coat, shirt, and pantaloons.
Source: wiktionary
[A] cock and two or three draggle-tailed hens were composing themselves to roost on the front portion of the cart between the shafts.
Source: wiktionary
Showing 4 of 7 available sentences.
Closest matches include unkempt.
Compare the replacement against real sentence context. This entry includes sample sentences so you can check tone, grammar, and meaning before swapping words.