Haggard Meaning
/ˈhæɡ.əd/Definition, CEFR level C2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjLooking exhausted, worried, or poor in condition
adjWild or untamed
Sentence Examples
You look positively haggard.
Lone lions, alas, always end up being hunted and haggard.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Because he had not slept in days, his appearance was ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
His face looked thin and ____ after he had spent several long weeks working on the difficult project without any rest.
Word Origin & History
From Middle French haggard, from Old French faulcon hagard (“wild falcon”) ( > French hagard (“dazed”)), from Middle High German hag (“coppice”) ( > archaic German Hag (“hedge, grove”)). Akin to Frankish *hagia ( > French haie (“hedge”))
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Staring his eyes, and haggard was his look."
— 1685, John Dryden, The Despairing Lover:
"Then there was a pale, care-wrinkled woman, not old, but haggard, and already with streaks of gray among her hair, like silver ribbons; one of those women, naturally delicate, whom you at once recognize as worn to death by a brute—probably, a drunken brute—of a husband, and at least nine children."
— 1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
"I looked at the morning / After being up all night / I looked at my haggard face in the bathroom light / I looked out the window / And I saw that ragged soul take flight"
— 1976, Joni Mitchell, “Black Crow”, in Hejira:
"By the end of two weeks there isn't a county in England where he hasn't pledged his holiness six different ways — which is not to deny that intermittently he has visions of himself as a haggard apostle of the life renounced, converting beautiful women and millionaires to Christian poverty."
— 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:
"No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggards of the rock."
— 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
Because he had not slept in days, his appearance was ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
His face looked thin and ____ after he had spent several long weeks working on the difficult project without any rest.