haggard
English
WOTD – 7 September 2007
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈhæɡ.əd/
- (US) enPR: hăg-ərd' IPA(key): /ˈhæɡ.ɚd/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -æɡə(ɹ)d
Etymology 1
From Middle French haggard, from Old French faulcon hagard (“wild falcon”) ( > French hagard (“dazed”)), from Middle High German hag (“coppice”) [1] ( > archaic German Hag (“hedge, grove”)). Akin to Frankish *hagia ( > French haie (“hedge”))[2]
Adjective
haggard (comparative more haggard, superlative most haggard)
- Looking exhausted, worried, or poor in condition
- Pale and haggard faces.
- A gradual descent into a haggard and feeble state.
- The years of hardship made her look somewhat haggard.
- 1685, John Dryden, The Despairing Lover
- Staring his eyes, and haggard was his look.
- 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables:
- 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.
- 1976, Joni Mitchell (lyrics and music), “Black Crow”, in Hejira:
- 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
- 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:
- 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.
- (of an animal) Wild or untamed
- a haggard or refractory hawk
Derived terms
- haggardly
- haggardness
Translations
looking exhausted and unwell
|
wild or untamed
|
Noun
haggard (plural haggards)
- (falconry) A hunting bird captured as an adult.
- 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 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:
- No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggards of the rock.
- 1856, John Henry Walsh, Manual of British Rural Sports
- HAGGARDS may be trapped in this country but with the square-net, or the bow-net, but in either case great difficulty is experienced
-
- (falconry) A young or untrained hawk or falcon.
- (obsolete) A fierce, intractable creature.
- c. 1590–1592, William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene ii]:
- I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.
-
- (obsolete) A hag.
- 1699, Samuel Garth, The Dispensary
- In a dark Grott the baleful Haggard lay,
Breathing black Vengeance, and infecting Day
- In a dark Grott the baleful Haggard lay,
- 1699, Samuel Garth, The Dispensary
Etymology 2
Old Norse heygarðr (“hay-yard”)[3]
Noun
haggard (plural haggards)
- (dialect, Isle of Man, Ireland, Scotland) A stackyard, an enclosure on a farm for stacking grain, hay, etc.
- He tuk a slew [swerve] round the haggard
References
- Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “haggard”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- Le Robert pour tous, Dictionnaire de la langue française, Janvier 2004, p. 547, haie
- Terence Patrick Dolan A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English (2006) s.v "haggard" p.118 →ISBN