Word.ws English Dictionary

ragman

ragman noun: a person who collects and sells unwanted household items such as rags and other refuse for a living, a rag and bone man.

Noun (1)

ragman (plural ragmen)

  1. A person who collects and sells unwanted household items such as rags and other refuse for a living, a rag and bone man.
    • For travellers have to carry bags, / And swagmen have to hump their swags / Like bottle-ohs or ragmen.1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 14
    • Oh, the ragman draws circles / Up and down the block / I'd ask him what the matter was / But I know that he don't talk1966, Bob Dylan, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”, in Blonde on Blonde

Noun (2)

ragman (countable and uncountable, plural ragmans)

  1. (historical) A statute issued by Edward I in 1276.
  2. (obsolete) A document having many names or seals, such as a papal bull.
    • He bonched hem with his breuet · & blered here eyes / And rauȝte with his ragman · rynges and broches […]c. 1390, William Langland, Piers Plowman, Prologue
  3. (historical, uncountable) A game in which players compete to pull an object from out of a roll of writing.

Proper noun capitalized: Ragman

Ragman

  1. A statute of Edward I by which the Scottish gentry and nobility were compelled to swear allegiance to the English king

Forms of ragman

pluralragmen
pluralragmans

Origin of ragman

From rag + man.

Unknown.

Phrases with ragman

Questions about ragman

What does ragman mean?
Ragman means a person who collects and sells unwanted household items such as rags and other refuse for a living, a rag and bone man.
What part of speech is ragman?
Ragman can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of ragman?
The plural of ragman is ragmen.

Words near ragman in the dictionary

  1. raglet
  2. raglets
  3. raglike
  4. Raglin
  5. Raglins
  6. ragman
  7. ragman roll
  8. ragman rolls
  9. ragmans
  10. ragmatical
  11. ragmen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ragman (page history and authors); Ragman (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.

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