medley

[ med-lee ]
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noun,plural med·leys.
  1. a mixture, especially of heterogeneous elements; hodgepodge; jumble.

  2. a piece of music combining tunes or passages from various sources: a medley of hit songs from Broadway shows.

adjective
  1. Archaic. mixed; mingled.

Origin of medley

1
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English noun and adjective medle(e), medlei(e), maedlai(e) “battle, war, quarrel; mixture, balanced mixture,” from Anglo-French, Old French medlee, mellee, noun and adjective use of feminine of past participle of medler “to mix, fight”; see origin at meddle

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How to use medley in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for medley

medley

/ (ˈmɛdlɪ) /


noun
  1. a mixture of various types or elements

  2. a musical composition consisting of various tunes arranged as a continuous whole

  1. Also called: medley relay

    • swimming a race in which a different stroke is used for each length

    • athletics a relay race in which each leg has a different distance

  2. an archaic word for melee

adjective
  1. of, being, or relating to a mixture or variety

Origin of medley

1
C14: from Old French medlee, from medler to mix, quarrel

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012