haggard
/ˈhaɡəd
/adjective
1Looking exhausted and unwell, especially from fatigue, worry, or suffering: she was pale and haggard Alex’s haggard face...
- I just hope they don't get even more haggard with all that worry than so many of them currently look.
- The two bandits, their haggard features grim with battle-blood, edged toward the tall warrior.
- There were still some remains of her make-up from the day before, smudged mascara underneath her eyes, a thin line of eyeliner all making her look exhausted and almost haggard.
Synonyms
careworn, tired, drained, drawn, raddled;
unwell, unhealthy, sickly, spent, sapped, washed out, rundown, exhausted;
gaunt, grim, pinched, peaked, peaky, hollow-cheeked, hollow-eyed;
pale, wan, grey, ashen, pallid, pasty-faced, sallow;
thin, emaciated, wasted, cadaverous, ghastly, ghostlike, deathlike
2(Of a hawk) caught for training as a wild adult of more than twelve months. Compare with passage hawk.We only got two in the nets, but what we lacked in quantity, we made for in quality - a passage goshawk and a haggard red-tailed hawk.
noun
A haggard hawk.They interred her remains in a corner of the cabbage haggard.
Derivatives
haggardly
/ adverb ...- ‘Waaaayne… ‘Grandmother Eva began in her deep, hoarse and haggardly voice.
- ‘Put me on the flight to Taipei,’ Jake said haggardly.’
- Thus are we drawn into an endless life of humiliation, where we haggardly never turn off our televisions, for fear of disappearing.
haggardness
/ noun ...- Looking up, Kristen couldn't help but notice the haggardness of her face, testimony to the nights that sleep eluded her and she worried about having to go to school the next day.
- But… there was a haggardness about her that Jack could never put her finger on.
- Despite the haggardness of my remaining months in college, I guess I really won't give it up for anything.
Origin
Mid 16th century (used in falconry): from French hagard; perhaps related to hedge; later influenced by hag1.
A word from falconry, where it is a technical term for an adult hawk caught for training. Unlike hawks bred or raised in captivity, haggards are wild and untamed. Wild-looking people, or their wild-looking eyes, began to be described as haggard in the 17th century, and from there the word developed the sense ‘looking exhausted or unwell’. The word may be related to hedge. See also hawk
Rhymes
- phyllostomid
- phyllostomine
- phyllostomoid
- phyllotactic
- phyllotactical
- phyllotaxis
- phyllotaxy
- phylloxanthin
- phylloxanthine
- phylloxera
- phylloxeral
- phylloxera mite
- phylloxeran
- phylloxerated
- phylloxeric
- phyloanalysis
- phyloanalyst
- phyloanalytic
- phylogenesis
- phylogenetic
- phylogenetical
- phylogenetically
- phylogeneticist
- phylogenetics
- phylogenic