draggle-tails

Indeed it is beneath them to meddle with such dirty draggle-tails; and whatever happens to them, it is good enough for them.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling 2004

I flushed crimson and declared resolutely that it was degrading for me to receive a salary for telling scandalous stories of how I had followed two draggle-tails to the

A Raw Youth 2003

Indeed, it is beneath them to meddle with such dirty draggle-tails; and whatever happens to them, it is good enough for them.

XII. Containing Much Clearer Matters. Book IV 1917

I see your faces at the doors, rosy from the country or yellowish-white from anæmia and strong tea; see how your young breasts hardly fill out your clinging bodices, all askew, and how your hips are not yet grown to support your skirts properly -- draggle-tails!

A Poor Man's House Stephen Sydney Reynolds 1900

Wyatt's men entered the city by this approach in the rebellion of 1554, and were called the "draggle-tails" because of their wretched plight.

The Life of Thomas Telford Smiles, Samuel, 1812-1904 1867

They were clad in dirty jackets and hats, draggle-tails, unkempt and unwashed, with orange and red kerchiefs round their necks (the gipsy colours).

Field and Hedgerow Being the Last Essays of Richard Jefferies Richard Jefferies 1867

Indeed it is beneath them to meddle with such dirty draggle-tails; and whatever happens to them, it is good enough for them.

History of Tom Jones, a Foundling Henry Fielding 1730

It’s well seen what choice the most of ’em know how to make, by the poor draggle-tails o’ wives you see, like bits

Adam Bede 2004