gallimaufry
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From French galimafrée, from Old French calimafree (“stew of various kinds of meats”); further etymology uncertain, but possibly from a combination of Old French galer (“to have fun, to enjoy oneself”) and Old Northern French (Picard) mafrer (“to eat gluttonously”).
Inflected forms:
form: gallimaufries
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: gallimaufray
pos: noun
tags: alternative
rare
form: gallimaufrey
pos: noun
tags: alternative
dated
Senses:
gloss: A hash of various kinds of meats; a ragout.
pos: noun
tags: countable
dated
uncountable
examples: At length, having discussed in turn pilaus, keebaubs, ollas, and a legion of gallimaufrys not mentioned in the classic pages of Kitchener and Ude, the cook's brain became completely addled by the elaborate and conflicting directions bestowed upon him; […]
I have tried many times, but always without success, to ascertain the average daily ration consumed by the Chinese railroad laborer, as a means of comparing their value with that of Americans. The reason this cannot be obtained is because they eat so many oily gallimaufries, alliaceous stews and indescribable vegetable hotchpotches, of which the ingredients are principally brought from China and have Chinese names.
For gallimaufrey, roast poultry or capons, and cut into pieces. After fry with lard or goose lard. When they are fried, put in wine and verjuice. For spices, put some ginger powder and, to thicken, cameline, and a moderate amount of salt.
gloss: Any absurd medley; an elaborate mishmash.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
uncountable
examples: [O]ur mother tongue, which truly of it ſelfe is both ful enough for proſe, and ſtately enough for verſe, hath long time beene counted moſt bare and barren of both. Which default, when as ſome endeuoured to ſalue and recure, they patched vp the holes with peeces and ragges of other languages; borrowing here of the French, there of the Italian, euery where of the Latine, not weighing how ill thoſe tongues accord with themſelues, but much worſe with ours: So how they haue made our Engliſh tongue a gallimaufrey or hodgepodge of all other ſpeeches.
Reader, Gentle or ungentle, I write to all, knowing that all have now got almoſt an equall ſhare and intereſt in this Gallimaufry or Hotchpot which our Grandee Pſeudo-Politicians with their negative and demoliſhing Councils have made, both of Church and Commonwealth: […]
We frankly confeſs, that a different ſpecies of ſolicitude is, in the preſent inſtance, excited in us, as Britiſh Critics; a ſolicitude for the credit of the compiler, a ſolicitude for the honour of his countrymen, on account of this crude, incongruous, farrago; this gallimaufry of Scottiſh antiquarianiſm.
An anarchy of small curls was her chevelure, a dark upland of misrule, every hair asserting its rights over a not discreditable brow. For the rest, her features were not at all original. They seemed to have been derived rather from a gallimaufry of familiar models.
[William] Shakespeare's early comedies are a gallimaufry of experiments, but each plays its part in the gradual conquest of the medium, the increasing mastery of its complex expressive capacities.
The language of writers who are safely dead, and can be studied without fear of their exerting a subversive influence, bears the respectable label 'old Scots dialect'; the same tongue spoken by the living compatriots of these writers is 'bad grammar'. […] This attitude is of course not new; though perhaps seldom expressed so blatantly. I call it the Pinkerton syndrome, after one of the many memorable figures in out national gallimaufray of scholarly eccentrics. John Pinkerton (1758–1826), poet, critic, historian, dramatist and Celtophobe, in 1786 produced a book, entitled Ancient Scotish Poems, never before in print: […]
A gallimaufry of minimal action and maximal thought, this is a creditable stab at writing the Great American novel.
[…] what students are taught instead is a gallimaufry of "texts".
Translations: