entry
straggler
/ˈstræɡlər/A person or animal separated from a group
From Middle English, uncertain Germanic origin straggle (To wander or become separated from a group).
Word Ancestry
Picture a medieval traveler losing sight of the road—or a soldier falling behind the marching column—and you have the original straggler: someone who has drifted away from the proper company. The noun appeared in the 1520s, built plainly from straggle plus the agent suffix -er, much as runner comes from run. The older verb is Middle English straglen, but its deeper ancestry is hazy: it may be related to dialectal Norwegian stragla, “to walk laboriously,” or to other Germanic words for moving and going. By the 1550s, animals could be stragglers; by the 1580s, the word had become especially useful for soldiers separated from the main body. English has since let the word wander into botany, where a shoot that grows beyond its neighbors is also a straggler—proof that even a plant can go AWOL.
The Story
Picture a medieval traveler losing sight of the road—or a soldier falling behind the marching column—and you have the original straggler: someone who has drifted away from the proper company. The noun appeared in the 1520s, built plainly from straggle plus the agent suffix -er, much as runner comes from run. The older verb is Middle English straglen, but its deeper ancestry is hazy: it may be related to dialectal Norwegian stragla, “to walk laboriously,” or to other Germanic words for moving and going. By the 1550s, animals could be stragglers; by the 1580s, the word had become especially useful for soldiers separated from the main body. English has since let the word wander into botany, where a shoot that grows beyond its neighbors is also a straggler—proof that even a plant can go AWOL.
Modern Usage
A derogatory term for a person lingering at a bar late at night, or an aimless wanderer
Kin & Kindred
From 'straggle'·To wander or become separated from a group
Derived Terms
English words from this root