Word of the Day Archive
Friday May 28, 2004
olla podrida \ol-uh-puh-DREE-duh; oy-uh-\ , noun;
plural olla podridas /-DREE-duhz/ or ollas podridas:
1. A stew of highly seasoned meat and vegetables.
2. A mixture; a hodgepodge.
This complex, Byzantine, at times long-winded work, which spent more than 60 weeks on Spain's best sellers list, throws together mystery, romance, and crime into one big mix like an olla podrida.
-- Lawrence Olszewski, review of The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Library Journal, February 1, 2004
The whole piece is an olla podrida of light music, in which the jig is the most conspicuous.
-- Juanita Karpf and Tom Scott, "Populism with Religious Restraint," review of Esther, the Beautiful Queen, by William B. Bradbury, Popular Music and Society, Spring 1999
Continuously testing the resilience of the melting pot differentiates America from other places; and the olla podrida of colors and cultures creates a reservoir of talents unduplicated on the planet.
-- Rotan E. Lee, "Black gay men suffer double racism", Philadelphia Tribune, August 22, 2003
Olla podrida comes from the Spanish, literally "rotten pot," from olla, "pot" (from Latin olla) + podrida, feminine of podrido, "rotten," from Latin putridus.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for olla podrida
