ragged

ragged

The edge of a passage of text that isn’t aligned is often said to be “ragged”, because its lines end at different points, giving the appearance of being ragged or torn.

Sometimes people will describe the alignment of text by which edge is aligned (e.g. “aligned left”), and sometimes by which edge is ragged (e.g. “ragged right”). They mean the same thing, though.

For example:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus aliquam urna lacus, sit amet pretium sapien convallis sed. Suspendisse accumsan eros libero, a malesuada turpis interdum vitae. Nec turpis varius, lobortis nisl eu, malesuada elit.

The above text is “aligned left” or “ragged right”.

The above text is “aligned right” or “ragged left”.

Category:	Design
Also known as:	ragged right, ragged left
See also:	justification