TATTERED

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tattered mean? 

• TATTERED (adjective)
  The adjective TATTERED has 2 senses:

1. worn to shreds; or wearing torn or ragged clothing

2. ruined or disrupted

  Familiarity information: TATTERED used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TATTERED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Worn to shreds; or wearing torn or ragged clothing

Synonyms:

tatterdemalion; tattered

Context example:

a tatterdemalion prince

Similar:

worn (affected by wear; damaged by long use)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Ruined or disrupted

Synonyms:

shattered; tattered

Context example:

my torn and tattered past

Similar:

destroyed (spoiled or ruined or demolished)

 Context examples 

I do not like ruined, tattered cottages.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He faced me presently with what looked like a very tattered sketch-book in his hand.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“A rouse! A rouse!” cried one rough looking fellow in a tattered jerkin.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather ruefully.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of spider's webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they looked like old tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He was plainly blind, for he tapped before him with a stick and wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose; and he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made him appear positively deformed.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a coloured shirt protruding through the rent in his tattered coat.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He beamed at us with the old paternal smile, but European science would have been somewhat amazed could they have seen their chosen child, the hope of the future, with his tangled, unkempt head, his bare chest, and his tattered clothes.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For forty yards round the portal the ground was black with writhing, screaming figures, who struggled up and hurled themselves down again, tossing this way and that, sightless, scorched, with fire bursting from their tattered clothing.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Some day, when I have a better desk than a meat-tin and more helpful tools than a worn stub of pencil and a last, tattered note-book, I will write some fuller account of the Accala Indians—of our life amongst them, and of the glimpses which we had of the strange conditions of wondrous Maple White Land.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)