Sc. Also wal(l)idrag, -draggle, -dragle, -tragle, warydraggel, -draggle, etc. (see Eng. Dial. Dict.). [Cf. DRAG, DRAGGLE vbs.]
1. ‘A feeble, ill-grown person or animal; a worthless, slovenly person, esp. a woman’ (Eng. Dial. Dict.).
1508. Kennedy, Flyting w. Dunbar, 43. Waik walidrag, and werlot of the cairtis.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, xxvi. 97. Full mony a waistless wallydrag, With wamiss vnweildable, did furth wag, In creische that did incress. Ibid. (a. 1508), Tua Mariit Wemen, 89. I haue ane wallidrag, ane worme, ane auld wobat carle.
1817. Scott, Rob Roy, xxxiv. That canna be said o’ king’s soldiers, if they let themselves be beaten wi’ a wheen auld carles that are past fighting,… and wives wi’ their rocks and distaffs, the very wally-draigles o’ the countryside. Ibid. (1818), Hrt. Midl., xviii. We think mair about the warst wally-draigle in our ain byre, than about the blessing which the angel of the covenant gave to the Patriarch.
1871. W. Alexander, Johnny Gibb (1873), 142. Yon bit pernicketty wallydraggle! He’ll dee some service, or than no.
2. (See quot. 1808.)
1808. Jamieson, Wallidrag.… It appears primarily to signify the youngest of a family, who is often the feeblest. It is sometimes used to denote the youngest bird in a nest.
1826. Galt, Last of Lairds, xxxvii. It’s just like a cuckoo dabbing a wallydraigle out o’ the nest.
