How to Use ragged in a Sentence

ragged

adjective
  • 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
  • This may be the function of the owl wing’s ragged fringes.
    Dana MacKenzie, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 Apr. 2020
  • The ragged ends of two thick limbs jutted from the trunk.
    Ted Gregory, chicagotribune.com, 27 Apr. 2018
  • Press to seal, trim any ragged edges, and crimp edges with tines of fork.
    Tribune News Service, cleveland, 14 Mar. 2022
  • What cowardice has caused you to retreat from the ragged heart of the desert?
    Mila Koumpilova, The Seattle Times, 25 Feb. 2018
  • Their ragged edges streaked with black dirt stare at him.
    Hurmat Kazmi, The Atlantic, 23 Nov. 2021
  • The ragged scar running throat to navel, from his open-heart surgery.
    oregonlive.com, 16 June 2019
  • The ragged start for the Rockets offense might have been a good thing.
    Jonathan Feigen, Houston Chronicle, 19 Jan. 2018
  • 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
  • In the distance, rising against the stars, was a ragged range of mountains.
    Stanley Stewart, Condé Nast Traveler, 22 Mar. 2024
  • 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
  • Smooth edges will heal better than the ragged edges left from the deer rubbing.
    Tim Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 11 Oct. 2020
  • 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
  • There were also ragged nerves to soothe and doubts to banish.
    Karla Peterson, sandiegouniontribune.com, 21 May 2017
  • So the ragged layers in these paintings can be seen as skin.
    Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 1 July 2022
  • Be sure to tear the meat off the bone into thick, ragged hunks to better sop up the dressing.
    Beth Dooley Special To The Star Tribune, Star Tribune, 2 Sep. 2020
  • Even the females sported this ragged look, but in warm brown.
    Dave Taft, New York Times, 22 Feb. 2018
  • Truth be told, that DID lead to a couple of rather ragged endings.
    Chuck Yarborough, cleveland, 6 Feb. 2020
  • He is left there in the hallway to recover, like a ragged doll of a wet fish.
    Devin Kelly, Longreads, 26 Jan. 2023
  • Kagalula had to restart his life from scratch and now lives in a ragged straw hut.
    Alec Jacobson, National Geographic, 3 May 2019
  • 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
  • She’s never given a ragged performance like this, but the dour movie is a tough sit.
    Anne Thompson, IndieWire, 16 Sep. 2024
  • Chief among them was the decision to lean toward a ragged, high-energy sound rather than precision.
    Tom Roland, Billboard, 2 Aug. 2024

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.

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