tattered

• tottered

From Middle English tatered, tatird, from Old Norse. Originally, it was derived from the noun, but it was later it reanalysed as a past participle (tatter +‎ -ed), whereafter the verb came into being. Compare tatter.

tattered (not comparable)

1. rent in tatters, torn, hanging in rags; ragged
   • 1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress:

     The chattering, irrational brute of the subconscious clothes itself in the tattered garments of rationality and idealism.

2. dressed in tatters or rags; ragged
   • 1895 October 1, Stephen Crane, chapter 10, in The Red Badge of Courage, 1st US edition, New York: D. Appleton and Company, page 101:

     The tattered man waved his hand.

3. (obsolete) dilapidated; showing gaps or breaks; jagged; broken

• tatty
• tatterdemalion

tattered

1. simple past tense and past participle of tatter

• tattered in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• “tattered”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.