• IPA: /ˈstɹæɡl̩/

straggle (straggles, present participle straggling; past and past participle straggled)

1. To stray from the road, course or line of march.

   He straggled away from the crowd and went off on his own.

2. To wander about; ramble.

   • The wolf spied out a straggling kid.

3. To spread at irregular intervals.
4. To escape or stretch beyond proper limits, as the branches of a plant; to spread widely apart; to shoot too far or widely in growth.

   • Trim off the small, superfluous branches on each side of the hedge that straggle too far out.

5. To be dispersed or separated; to occur at intervals.
   • 1814 July 6, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. In Three Volumes, volume (please specify ), Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, OCLC 270129598 ↗:

   • They came between Scylla and Charybdis and the straggling rocks.

• German: abweichen, abschweifen
• Italian: abbandonare la strada maestra, distaccarsi, disperdersi
• Russian: отби́ться

• German: umherwandern, herumwandern, wandern, herumstreifen, umherstreifen
• Italian: girovagare
• Russian: блужда́ть

• German: abspreizen, ausstrecken, herausstehen, wuchern, sich zerstreuen
• Italian: sparpagliarsi, arrivare alla spicciolata

straggle (plural straggles)

1. An irregular, spread-out group.
2. An outlier; something that has strayed beyond the normal limits.
   • 1858 Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia

     Nevertheless there is a straggle of pungent sense in it, — like the outskirts of lightning, seen in that dismally wet weather, which the Royal Party had.