haggard Hear it!

haggard Definition

hag·gard (hagərd)

adjective

  1. Falconry designating a hawk captured after reaching maturity
  2. untamed; unruly; wild
    1. wild-eyed
    2. having a wild, wasted, worn look, as from sleeplessness, grief, or illness; gaunt; drawn

Etymology: MFr hagard, untamed, untamed hawk

noun

Falconry a haggard hawk

haggard Related Forms
hag·gardly adverb hag·gard·ness noun
Haggard Definition

Hag·gard (hagərd)

Haggard, Sir H(enry) Rider 1856-1925; Eng. novelist

haggard Synonyms

haggard

modif.

gaunt, careworn, fretted; see thin 2, weak 1.

haggard Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • look: They looked haggard, their chests sunken, black rings under their eyes.

Modifying Another Word

  • so: She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning.

Modifies a noun

  • face: Holmes sat in a great, old-fashioned chair, his inexorable eyes gleaming out of his haggard face.
  • look: The people had a haggard look to them, far thinner than they should be.
  • eye: The man of the omnibus was there with haggard eyes.
  • woman: He watched as an old, haggard woman hobbled on, and the doors closed.
  • man: The haggard man sitting opposite me is an Iraqi Kurd, a poet.
  • frame: My whole haggard frame was enveloped in a huge blue flushing coat frosted like a plum-cake with ice and snow.

Used with adjective complement

  • look: She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning.
  • become: So if you are not giving your body all the nutrients it needs, your face will become haggard looking.

Noun used with modifier

  • face: Her hands were raw and bleeding from moving the blocks of stone, her face haggard.
haggard Quotes

He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who has suddenly remembered that hehasforgottentoshovethe cyanide in the consomme¤  , and the dinner-gong due any moment.

—Plum

   A pallid and thin young man, A haggard and lank young man, A greenery-yallery,Grosvenor Gallery, Foot-in-the-grave young man! A Sewell & Cross young man, A Howell & James young man, A push-ing young par-ti-cleö 'What's the next ar-ti-cle?'ö Wa-ter-loo House young man!

—Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)

Browse dictionary entries near haggard

  1. Haggai
  2. haggadist
  3. Haggada
  4. hagfish
  5. Hagen
  6. hagborn
  7. Hagar
  8. hag
  9. haftara
  10. haft
  1. haggis
  2. haggish
  3. haggle
  4. hagiarchy
  5. hagio-
  6. hagiocracy
  7. Hagiographa
  8. hagiographer
  9. hagiographic
  10. hagiography