farrago
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /fəˈɹeɪɡoʊ/
ipa: /fəˈɹɑːɡoʊ/
Forms: form: farragos
form: farragoes
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin farrāgō (“mixed fodder; mixture, hodgepodge”), from far (“emmer (a kind of wheat), coarse meal, grits”). Doublet of farro.
Senses: examples: text: Yet do I carry every vvhere vvith me ſuch a confounded farago of doubts, fears, hopes, vviſhes, and all the flimſy furniture of a country Miſs's brain!
ref: 1775 January 17 (first performance), [Richard Brinsley Sheridan], The Rivals, a Comedy. […], London: […] John Wilkie, […], published 1775, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 20:
text: Back in Paris, where all men adrift naturally float, he succeeded in publishing a fantastic novel, “Sortie d’un Rêve,” a farrago of all that is most foolish in the earlier romantic authors, with here and there a racy turn—“a personal note,” M. Zola would say.
ref: 1885 July, “A Forgotten Pamphleteer”, in Tinsleys’ Magazine, volume 37, London: Tinsley Brothers, page 84:
text: Balfe's next work, 'The Maid of Artois,' was written to a libretto furnished by Bunn, the first of those astonishing farragoes of balderdash which raised the Drury Lane manager to the first rank amongst poetasters.
ref: a. 1900, William Barclay Squire, “Balfe, Michael William”, in Dictionary of National Biography, volume 3:
text: Hastily adapted by slovenly hacks, their librettos (often witty in the original) became incredible farragos of metreless doggrel and punning ineptitude.
ref: 1911, “Drama, 11f: Modern English Drama”, in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition:
text: Or, This is a farrago of absurdity, I could never feel anything of the sort myself.
ref: 1929 September, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, uniform edition, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, […], published 1931 (April 1935 printing), →OCLC, page 72:
text: The original script is a complicated farrago of intertwined greed and lust, with marriages being planned and hearts being broken in order to accumulate fortunes as well as romance.
ref: 2005 November 7, Toronto Star:
text: It has been pointed out in this space before that a number of the titles you'll find shelved under self-help in your local bookshop are, on closer examination, farragos of wooden-headed tripe, written by mountebanks and halfwits.
ref: 2007 June 15, Oliver Burkeman, “The rise of the anti-self-help movement”, in The Guardian:
text: And this is where the larger problem lies: when states try to enforce impossible bans, everyone loses. 3D printing farragoes have all the hallmarks of the absolute worst kind of ineffectual ban: one which encourages overly draconian laws that carry huge side effects, and that ultimately to have little to no effect.
ref: 2013 May 10, James Ball, “US government attempts to stifle 3D-printer gun designs will ultimately fail”, in The Guardian:
text: The farrago may have deprived Farage of a fancy bank account, but Alison Rose, chief executive of Coutts’ less exclusive owner, NatWest, gave him something much more valuable: the moral high ground.
ref: 2023 December 31, Jasper Jolly, “A Farage farrago, crypto crime and rivers of cash: the 2023 Observer business awards”, in The Guardian:
synonyms: word: hodgepodge
word: melange
word: mingle-mangle
word: bouillabaisse
word: bric-a-brac
word: catch-all
word: clamjamfrey
word: cocktail
word: gallery
word: congeries
word: crazyquilt
word: disjecta membra
word: farrago
word: galimatias
word: gallimaufry
word: grab bag
word: hodgepodge
word: horse and rabbit stew
word: hotchpotch
word: hotchpot
word: job lot
word: jumble
word: macedoine
word: medley
word: melange
word: mingle-mangle
word: miscellanea
word: miscellany
word: mishmash
word: mixed bag
word: mixture
word: motley
word: odds and ends
word: oddments
word: olio
word: olla podrida
word: omnium-gatherum
word: pastiche
word: patchwork quilt
word: potpourri
word: ragbag
word: salmagundi
word: slurry
word: smorgasbord
word: welter
word: Whitman's sampler
glosses: A collection containing a confused variety of miscellaneous things.
Derived terms: farraginous
Related terms: farro
bric-a-brac
eclectic
grab bag
heteroclite
miscellany