How to Use ragged in a Sentence

ragged

adjective
Definition of raggednext
Synonyms for raggednext
  • You look a little ragged—did you have a rough week?
  • The ragged trees of my youth, up on the hills, looked like ghosts.
    — New York Times, 6 Oct. 2021
  • Press to seal, trim any ragged edges, and crimp edges with tines of fork.
    — Tribune News Service, cleveland, 14 Mar. 2022
  • Their ragged edges streaked with black dirt stare at him.
    — Hurmat Kazmi, The Atlantic, 23 Nov. 2021
  • The truth is no longer sought in the ragged howls of the blues or the verses of the Bible, but in a tank of gas and a rearview mirror.
    — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 4 May 2023
  • The sculptures on the screen were arranged beneath a string of flags made ragged by the wind.
    — Jessi Jezewska Stevens, Harper’s Magazine , 28 Sep. 2022
  • The nail on my right hand, the ragged ending to a difficult day.
    — Mary Jo Bang, The New Yorker, 27 June 2022
  • Cut this selection to the ground in spring to get rid of the ragged growth left from winter.
    — Southern Living Editors, Southern Living, 30 June 2023
  • So the ragged layers in these paintings can be seen as skin.
    — Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 1 July 2022
  • He is left there in the hallway to recover, like a ragged doll of a wet fish.
    — Devin Kelly, Longreads, 26 Jan. 2023
  • The ragged assembly smelled of sweat, camp smoke and weeks of combat.
    — Thomas Curwen Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 5 Dec. 2021
  • Has this ragged brick chapel on Salt Lake City’s west side run out of useful lives?
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 17 Jan. 2021
  • These men and women have been run ragged and are still running strong.
    — Caitlin Yilek, CBS News, 25 Aug. 2021
  • Buckskin Gulch is a gnarly rip in the desert that cuts a ragged path along the Utah-Arizona border.
    — David Kelly, Los Angeles Times, 4 June 2021
  • Sunday’s matinee got off to a ragged start as the teams combined to make just one of 10 shots.
    — Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2021
  • Keep an eye out for holes and ragged edges in brassica leaves.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 1 Jan. 2022
  • The retablos are framed in webbing made from the same ragged material that forms the body of the snake.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 25 May 2023
  • The race got off to a ragged start with nine of the first 10 laps run fully or mostly under caution.
    — Dave Kallmann, Journal Sentinel, 12 June 2022
  • Unable to open any of the doors, Charles Marchant climbed onto the fuselage and pulled Huggan out through a ragged hole.
    — David Reamer, Anchorage Daily News, 10 Oct. 2022
  • Downhill skiing, the defining beat-the-clock event at the Winter Olympic Games, is all about a kind of ragged-edge speed.
    — Los Angeles Times, 7 Feb. 2022
  • For all of its ragged shagginess, Dahl’s story is honed down to a fine point.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 28 Sep. 2023
  • But a chance phone call from a stranger alerted Beal to the amazing backstory to this ragged piece of cloth.
    — Phillip Zonkel, USA TODAY, 10 June 2021
  • The only sound onstage during this time was the ragged breath of the performers and the sound of the water lapping at the pool.
    — Los Angeles Times, 21 Oct. 2022
  • The ragged soldiers there are fully caught up in the nocturnal war.
    — New York Times, 14 July 2021
  • The principal stared across the grassy lawn at the fourth- and fifth-graders, standing masked and six feet apart in a ragged line against a wooden fence.
    — Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2021
  • These buttes jut upward like the bony ridge of a lupine jaw, sharp and carnivorous and ragged.
    — Nick Remsen, Vogue, 21 Dec. 2022
  • Not long ago Cochise County was the ragged edge of the frontier and that raw history still lingers close to the surface.
    — Roger Naylor, The Arizona Republic, 7 Apr. 2021
  • That came through loud and clear in his performance, which brought those songs to life in all their ragged glory.
    — Ed Masley, USA TODAY, 13 Feb. 2023
  • Portland came out ahead in a ragged first-half rock fight that ended with a 19-18 Pilots lead.
    — Scott Sepich For The Oregonian/oregonlive, oregonlive, 11 Feb. 2023
  • The city had a festive, ragged atmosphere, as if a concert had just let out.
    — Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 6 June 2022

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

Last Updated: