Tons treated badly being in rags (8)
I believe the answer is:
tattered
'in rags' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'tons treated badly' is the wordplay.
'tons' becomes 't'.
'badly' indicates an anagram.
'treated' anagrammed gives 'attered'.
't'+'attered'='TATTERED'
'being' is the link.
(Other definitions for tattered that I've seen before include "Old and torn" , "Torn and ragged" , "Ragged and threadbare" , "In rags" , "Torn irregularly like scarecrow's clothes" .)