disheveled
adjective
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These days, the adjective disheveled is used to describe almost anything or anyone marked by disorder or disarray. Rumpled clothes, for example, often contribute to a disheveled appearance, as in Colson Whitehead’s novel Crook Manifesto, when the comedian Roscoe Pope walks onstage “disheveled, in wrinkled green corduroy pants.” Apartments, desks, bedsheets, you name it—all can be disheveled when not at their neatest and tidiest. Hair, however, is the most common noun to which disheveled is applied (along with hairdo terms like bun and beard), a fact that makes etymological sense. Disheveled comes from the Middle English adjective discheveled, meaning “bareheaded” or “with disordered hair.” That word is a partial translation of the Anglo-French word deschevelé, a combination of the prefix des- (“dis-“) and chevoil, meaning “hair.”
Examples of disheveled in a Sentence
Sophie Dodd, PEOPLE, 29 Jan. 2026
The island’s more disheveled beach, Pasture Bay (a hawksbill turtle nesting haven from June until November), is fringed by wayward bushes and wildflowers—a scene, one imagines, not far removed from the one Christopher Columbus sailed into in 1463.
—Rosalyn Wikeley, Condé Nast Traveler, 22 Jan. 2026
In King’s front yard Tuesday sat a disheveled collection of lawn chairs, boxes and containers.
—Kendrick Calfee, Kansas City Star, 14 Jan. 2026
Instead, Ferguson watched as her once bright-eyed, handsome son sank into disheveled psychosis, bouncing between family members' homes, homeless shelters, jails, clinics, emergency rooms and Ohio's regional psychiatric hospitals.
—Sarah Jane Tribble, NPR, 22 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for disheveled
Cite this Entry
“Disheveled.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disheveled. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.
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