draggle-tailed

Etymology
Taken from, this was originally applied to women whose dresses dragged along the ground behind them.

Adjective

 * 1)  Slatternly, untidy, unkempt.
 * 2) * 1830,, Conversations of , Esq., R.A., London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, “Conversation the Fourth,” p. 51,
 * Every thing of that sort appears to be at present no better than it is with us in a country-town: or rather it wants the simplicity and rustic innocence, and is more like the draggled-tailed finery of a lady’s waiting-maid.
 * 1) * 1840,, letter to Abraham P. Leech dated 11 August, 1840, in (ed.), Walt Whitman: The Correspondence, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004, Volume7, p.3,
 * probably all the whig enthusiasm generated on that occasion was melted down again by this unlucky shower, for we passed loads of forlorn gentlemen, with draggle-tailed coats, crest-fallen hats, and sour-looking phizzes. — The mighty patriotism they felt was drowned by a tormenting slipperiness of coat, shirt, and pantaloons.
 * probably all the whig enthusiasm generated on that occasion was melted down again by this unlucky shower, for we passed loads of forlorn gentlemen, with draggle-tailed coats, crest-fallen hats, and sour-looking phizzes. — The mighty patriotism they felt was drowned by a tormenting slipperiness of coat, shirt, and pantaloons.