Word.ws English Dictionary

raggle-taggle

UK/ˈɹaɡ(ə)ltaɡ(ə)l/

raggle-taggle adjective: disorderly, in a messy or chaotic state; ragged.

Adjective

raggle-taggle (comparative more raggle-taggle, superlative most raggle-taggle)

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

Forms of raggle-taggle

comparativemore raggle-taggle
superlativemost raggle-taggle

Origin of raggle-taggle

Alteration of rag-tag; see also -le.

Questions about raggle-taggle

What does raggle-taggle mean?
Raggle-taggle means disorderly, in a messy or chaotic state; ragged.
What part of speech is raggle-taggle?
Raggle-taggle is an adjective.
How do you pronounce raggle-taggle?
Raggle-taggle is pronounced /ˈɹaɡ(ə)ltaɡ(ə)l/ (UK).

Words near raggle-taggle in the dictionary

  1. ragging out
  2. raggings
  3. Raggio
  4. Raggios
  5. raggle
  6. raggle-taggle
  7. raggled
  8. raggles
  9. raggling
  10. ragguled
  11. raggy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: raggle-taggle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-raggle-taggle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “raggle-taggle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/raggle-taggle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.