Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also draggle-drawers) a prostitute, a promiscuous woman.

[1595		‘W.S.’ Lamentable Tragedie of Locrine III iv: If you be so plaine mistresse drigle dragle, fare you well].
1596		Nashe Have With You to Saffron-Walden in Works III (1883–4) 180: So this will be a iest to make one laugh that lyes a dying, to see a Gillian draggell taile run here tail into a bushe of thornes, because her nailes are not long inough to scratch it.
1655		Gossips Braule 5: doll: Doe ye hear, Mistris Bung-breech, Who do you call Whore, pray? bess: Not you goody draggle-tayl with the doggs-Skin muff at your breech.
[1674–81		‘The Old Pudding-Pye Woman’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1893) VII:1 77: In Winter [when it snows] you may behold her dragled Tail].
1683		Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony 2: Let a handsome draggletail come in sight, and they cry, Fair and sluttish.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Draggle-tail a nasty dirty Slut.
c.1700		‘The Poor Whores Complaint’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 217: With their draggel tales thats nine inches deep.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 145: An Oyster-Wench suing a Kitchen Staff-Woman, for calling her Draggle-tail.
1752		‘Roxana Termagent’ Drury Lane Jrnl 16 Jan. 5: Sunday last Moll Draggletail, alias Foulmouth, alias Fire-ship, alias Strip-me-naked, alias Bung your eye, was [...] charg’d with an intent to commit fornication, by street-walking in the Strand.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Draggletail or Daggletail one whose garments are bespattered with Dag or Dew. Generally applied to the female sex, to Signify a Slut.
[1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn) n.p.: Draggletail [...] One whose garments are bespattered with dag or dew: generally applied to the female sex, to signify a slattern].
1815		‘Dame Durden’ in Brahamian Songster 3: ’Twas Moll and Bet, and Doll and Kate, And Dorothy Dragaltail.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1842		Wkly Rake (NY) 30 July n.p.: wants to knowDo you understand, Dorothy Draggletail, of Hudson st?
1863		G.A. Sala Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous 194: Sukey Mops and Dorothy Draggletail went off to the Drawing-room in Satin sacks and High-heeled shoes.
1900		Portsmouth Eve. News 5 Jan. 2/4: Bridget Heffornan, the draggle-tail and tippler.
1923		P. MacGill Moleskin Joe 62: Sally Jaup! Old Draggle-tails, you mean?
1936		W.R. Burnett King Cole 136: Read [...] why pick on a little pushover? She’s got sore throat from saying yes. She’s got callouses on her shoulder blades.’ ‘Don’t be nasty.’ ‘And I always talk about ascetic Read Cole! Goes for the first little draggle-drawers that looks at him’.
1992		E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 9: It seems strained to insist that a Scots song about the nature of the penis would give rise to another about the size of the vaginas of four draggletails from Baltimore.

2. a female servant.

1882		Bristol Magpie 28 Sept. 3/2: And Jack kissed Kitty! / And Dorothy Draggletail, / [...] And Kitty was a charming girl / To carry the milking pail.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Aug. 13/3: After a few lessons the boy learned to scrub and wash with surprising cleanliness, putting more ‘elbow grease’ into the performance than any of my other helps. Of course it seems a bit queer at first to dispense with the familiar draggle-tail.