tatter

For example, Border Morris, originating in the Welsh border counties of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, features performers who wear tatter coats and often paint their faces or use other forms of disguise.

From BBC ● Nov. 15, 2024

They tatter rose blooms, and they’ve been known to devastate dahlia flowers overnight.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 23, 2022

In the theater and when dancing, the tails looked like butterfly wings flying, but on the battlefield, we had to tatter and tear them, make them full of holes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2022

In boxing, these guys have great vision, because you got to be able to see an opening, and when he's got an opening he would just tatter you, like a machine gun punch.

From Salon ● May 5, 2019

When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch.

From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck

Without Kate, Hal and the stalwart staff surrounding them, our international relations may very well be in tatters.

From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2026

It was rocked by a MeToo scandal in 2018 that left it in tatters, and more than half of its members have since been replaced.

From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026

But whatever he actually believes, Sheeran’s long-cultivated neutrality is in tatters.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026

Fierce competition and tariffs have left Shein’s growth story in tatters, but it still has moves to make.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026

His leotard was in tatters, which was just about the only way it could’ve looked less attractive on him.

From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan

I’ve been momentarily halted by that title each time I’ve picked up my tattered $5 thrift-store copy over the last few weeks.

From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2026

America’s financial playbook may be tattered, but Generation Z is taking matters into its own hands.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026

Surrounded by sons and grandsons under a clattering ceiling fan, Safi showed the tattered identity document he has kept since fleeing the Soviet occupation more than four decades ago.

From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026

Soon after the start of the Civil War, Church turned the atmospheric effects of a rising sun, striated clouds, and stars peeking through a patch of sky into a tattered Union flag.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026

A bunch of young men in tattered coats and hats were pelting each other with balls of ice, roaring with laughter like kids having a snowball fight.

From "I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912" by Lauren Tarshis

Meanwhile — and this may motivate you to get those steps in — the control group actually showed a decline in white matter, "with greater thinning and tattering of their axons and falling cognitive scores."

From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2021

Meanwhile, the members of the control group, who had not exercised aerobically, showed declining white matter health after the six months, with greater thinning and tattering of their axons and falling cognitive scores.

From New York Times ● Jul. 14, 2021

Purists will fume, but what is worse is that such permissiveness can only invite a further tattering of the language -- and already has.

From Time Magazine Archive

The billowing clouds of Mordor were being driven back, their edges tattering as a wind out of the living world came up and swept the fumes and smokes towards the dark land of their home.

From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien

That fumbling page had unnerved me, just as much as the ceaseless tattering of branches and the gusting winds that had howled in my ears as I’d trudged across the city that night.

From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu