Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Torn into shreds; ragged.
- adjective Having ragged clothes; dressed in tatters.
- adjective Shabby or dilapidated.
- adjective Disordered or disrupted.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Rent in tatters; torn; hanging in rags.
- Dilapidated; showing gaps or breaks; jagged; broken.
- Dressed in tatters or rags; ragged.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective rent in
tatters ,torn , hanging inrags ;ragged - adjective
dressed intatters orrags ;ragged - adjective obsolete
dilapidated ; showinggaps orbreaks ;jagged ;broken - verb Simple past tense and past participle of
tatter .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective ruined or disrupted
- adjective worn to shreds; or wearing torn or ragged clothing
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word tattered.
Examples
-
And they denounce what they called the tattered shroud of mandatory celibacy.
-
He cited the recent example of a Columbia Heights Station escalator that bore what he described as a tattered banner referring to repair dates in 2009.
-
An old black man in tattered overalls stepped out from the band of shade cast by the police van.
-
It's like when he went to Beijing to cover the Olympics and wrote a column about how the government had cleared away the poor and tattered from the streets (or something along those lines, the memory blurs).
-
For I have issued the fatwa, and the web of the Spider now hangs in tattered shreds, but before his death he knew this: that his life is fleeting, and we will last forever.
The Parable of the Spider darkerblogistan 2009
-
And, like kids watching magicians in tattered top hats, audiences want to believe those myths.
Vanessa Richmond: Willow Smith and America's Dirty Little Fame Secret Vanessa Richmond 2010
-
We could wind up with a country where nothing is manufactured but guns, and we'll be standing around in tattered loincloths, freezing and unshod next to our rusting out-of-gas SUV's clutching our empty black rifles.
-
From the oak tree by the kitchen door, in tattered, weatherbeaten garments, hung the bodies of two men.
War 2010
-
We could wind up with a country where nothing is manufactured but guns, and we'll be standing around in tattered loincloths, freezing and unshod next to our rusting out-of-gas SUV's clutching our empty black rifles.
-
They covered me in tattered fabrics, slid a bonnet around my head to shade my face and pulled me through the feathers towards my brother.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.