frayed

I have never been to the British Museum, so for me its leather chairs still creak under harrumphing old colonels with handlebar moustaches, wheezing tubercular poets in frayed brown sweaters, and Karl Marx.

Secrets of the Crypt - Arthur Phillips talks about how he came to write The Egyptologist 2010

Unspoken, unmentioned, was the reality the that the domestic consensus for the war, so clear in the wake of 9/11, has frayed, is broken, and absent another terrorist tragedy could never be reassembled with the strength it once possessed.

Discourse.net: Mr. Obama's War -- And Ours 2009

It was a place where gray mists hid the tops of low, deep-green mountains, where redbone and bluetick hounds flashed through the pines as they chased possums into the sacks of old men in frayed overalls, where old women in bonnets dipped Bruton snuff and hummed "Faded Love and Winter Roses" as they shelled purple hulls, canned peaches and made biscuits too good for this world.

Excerpt: All Over But The Shoutin' by Rick Bragg 1997

Beat’s outer trappings — black turtlenecks, cigarette pants, neckerchiefs, berets — is indebted less to Jack Kerouac and his wayward cohort, who slouched about in frayed flannel shirts, than to stylized interpretations in movies like “Funny Face” or the less well-known “Subterraneans,’’ a 1960 film based on a Kerouac novel about the kinky denizens of North Beach in San Francisco.

August 2006 2006

Beat’s outer trappings — black turtlenecks, cigarette pants, neckerchiefs, berets — is indebted less to Jack Kerouac and his wayward cohort, who slouched about in frayed flannel shirts, than to stylized interpretations in movies like “Funny Face” or the less well-known “Subterraneans,’’ a 1960 film based on a Kerouac novel about the kinky denizens of North Beach in San Francisco.

Everything New Is Beat Again 2006

We've got some pictures we want to show you of what would probably best be described as frayed nerves at airports all over the country.

CNN Transcript Mar 17, 2007 2007

The fabric is constructed so it has rows of "frayed" ruffles - but they are really the edges of the fabric.

Cherie of Shrimpton Couture - A Dress A Day 2009

The fabric is constructed so it has rows of "frayed" ruffles - but they are really the edges of the fabric.

February 2009 2009

"Looky there," said the skipper of the second skiff, "do you notice that where we make this turn to the left the bushes along the point are kind of frayed, like something had rubbed against 'em a heap of times?"

Afloat or, Adventures on Watery Trails Alan Douglas

As I happened to be sitting next the driver going to town on the 'bus, I told him my joke about the "frayed" shirts.

The Diary of a Nobody Grossmith, George, 1847-1912 1921