Word of the Day Archive
Saturday December 17, 2005
melange \may-LAHNZH\ , noun:
A mixture; a medley.
Interspersed with diverse lectures and classroom activities were periods of financial difficulty, military service, and employment as a private tutor, all of which added to the curious melange of experiences that would ultimately blossom into his unexpected and remarkable life's work.
-- Norman Brosterman, Inventing Kindergarten
The smell in the car . . . was a pungent, sour melange of garlic, unwashed bodies, vodka, musty woolen overcoats, and Bulgarian tobacco.
-- Fen Montaigne, Reeling in Russia
Many books in popular psychology are a melange of the author's comments, a dollop of research, and stupefyingly dull transcriptions from interviews.
-- Carol Tavris, "A Remedy But Not a Cure", New York Times, February 26, 1989
Melange derives from Old French meslance, from mesler, "to mix," ultimately from Latin miscere, "to mix."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for melange