tatterdemalion means tattered. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 85 out of 100.
Why this word is great
TATTERDEMALION — [Adjective, Noun] Describing a person clad in ragged attire or the state of such raggedness. First attested circa 1608, formed within English by compounding. The first element is from 'tatter' (a torn scrap or rag). The origin of the second element (e.g., '-demalion') is uncertain, though it has been speculatively linked to French 'de maillot' ("shirt"). Unlike ragamuffin, which conjures a scruffy, youthful rier, or dilapidated, which evokes crumbling stone and timber, tatterdemalion is a walking ruin of cloth—the wearer inseparable from the worn. It is the ship's ensign reduced to a spectral fringe by salt winds; the dignity of the old coat whose every patch tells a story of a different season; the last stubborn leaf clinging to a winter oak—a testament to the quiet, threadbare nobility of a thing wholly used by the world.
adj
- Tattered.“The house, on his arrival, seemed in some confusion, as if a catastrophe had happened in the family; and the servants clustered together in the hall, and were unable, or perhaps not altogether anxious, to suppress their merriment at the tatterdemalion figure of the secretary.”
noun
- A person with tattered clothing.“[…] we haue ordeined that through euery ward […] there be erected one sound, sufficient, and well painted whipping poste, the very sight of which wil not only scarre them, worse then the scowting face of a Serieant being seen peeping through a red lettice, frights a yong gallant, but also in time driue the whole band of Tatterdemalions from poste to piller.”