How to Use bedraggled in a Sentence

bedraggled

adjective
  • She was bedraggled and exhausted.
  • Blondie looked rather bedraggled himself, but more or less sober.
    — Stephen King, The Atlantic, 15 May 2026
  • NOw is a great time to clean up the old leaves that may be a bit bedraggled.
    — Janet Carson, Arkansas Online, 11 Oct. 2020
  • That is stoking fears that the bedraggled economy could stall.
    — Megan Cerullo, CBS News, 19 July 2019
  • Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days.
    — Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2026
  • Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days.
    — Katie Walsh, Twin Cities, 18 Apr. 2026
  • Too much water or too little water will cause plants to drop leaves and take on a bedraggled appearance.
    — Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 25 Nov. 2025
  • Another sure way to make your garden beds look less bedraggled is to edge them, Stanchfield said.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 9 Apr. 2021
  • Two little girls, one in a bedraggled party dress, followed us, whispering.
    — Michelle Green, New York Times, 11 Nov. 2019
  • Straight ahead lies the bedraggled body of Zidane, defiantly fighting on, but for how long?
    — SI.com, 23 Oct. 2019
  • Moreover, despite her brilliance, Coffee could come across as bedraggled.
    — Vanityfair.com, VanityFair.com, 19 Jan. 2017
  • Woody Allen, meanwhile, is a begrudging (and slightly bedraggled) prep.
    — Jacob Gallagher, WSJ, 9 Aug. 2017
  • Iran's leaders hoped the nuclear deal would kick-start the country's bedraggled economy, but that has not worked in practice.
    — Amanda Erickson, Washington Post, 4 Jan. 2018
  • The interior was empty save a few fixtures and a bedraggled Christmas tree.
    — Los Angeles Times, 15 Jan. 2020
  • Now, as hair salons reopen the world over after a covid-19 hiatus, the bearded and bedraggled are flocking back to the pros.
    — The Economist, 28 May 2020
  • The raccoon looked a bit bedraggled but healthy after it was caught before dawn atop the UBS Plaza.
    — Washington Post, 14 June 2018
  • Hallberg thinks Sanders pulls off the bedraggled shtick authentically but wouldn’t coach clients to use his hand gestures or posture.
    — Menachem Wecker, Washington Post, 30 Sep. 2019
  • Suddenly my fashion shoots smelled of Phytoplage rather than Elnett and the girls looked bedraggled rather that jhoozed.
    — Nicole Phelps, Vogue, 22 Dec. 2018
  • Another shows a Tesla whisking away a bedraggled couple trapped in a post-apocalyptic oil field.
    — Louis Hansen, The Mercury News, 2 Mar. 2017
  • No bedraggled flannel looks pulled together sloppily so as not to overshadow one’s act for Pete.
    — Kenzie Bryant, Vanities, 29 June 2018
  • Watering mums from above has a similar effect, leaving blooms bedraggled and dull and shortening the lifespan of the flowers.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 21 Sep. 2025
  • Three days later, the once beautiful Brazilian, now a weary and bedraggled prisoner, arrived back in Ohio.
    — Erin Moriarty, CBS News, 4 Feb. 2018
  • His bedraggled appearance, unshaven in a blue prison jacket, elicited little sympathy.
    — The Economist, 27 June 2020
  • As the bedraggled salesman Willy Loman, Peter Jacobson emotes a lot with his hands.
    — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Turns out that no two persons in Washington County could have been better suited to rescue a confused, gimpy and bedraggled dog.
    — Rick Montgomery, kansascity, 17 Oct. 2017
  • The story begins four million years ago in Africa, where a bunch of bedraggled primates are losing the battle of the survival of the fittest until a strange black monolith appears.
    — Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 10 May 2018
  • Although some houseplants don’t mind dry air, low humidity levels put stress on certain tropical plants and ferns, and leave plants looking bedraggled, or, in the worst case, slowly kill them.
    — Lauren Landers, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Dec. 2025
  • Most days and nights the northwest corner of 27th and State streets in Bronzeville is a bedraggled and dispiriting place, the sort of empty lot so common across many parts of the city.
    — Rick Kogan, chicagotribune.com, 19 June 2017
  • The scale and complexity mean that depicting it in visual terms is hard—as the bedraggled rubber squid and limp flora on show at Venice inadvertently attest.
    — The Economist, 19 Sep. 2019
  • The hashtag #Jesuisspelacchio was born, where Twitter users shared their own messages of solidarity with the bedraggled tree.
    — Elisabetta Povoledo, New York Times, 20 Dec. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bedraggled.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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