Medley

How to spell medley

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce medley

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does medley mean?

1. nounA varied mixture or assortment of different people or things.
2. nounA piece of music made by combining several different tunes or songs into one continuous performance.

Medley in a sentence

• The buffet offered a medley of regional dishes from across the country.

• The choir closed the concert with a medley of festive carols.

• Her garden was a colourful medley of wildflowers and herbs.

• The band played a medley of their greatest hits to end the show.

Where does medley come from?

Language of origin: French

Medley comes from the Old French word medlee, a regional variant of meslee meaning 'a mixture' or 'a hand-to-hand fight'. That noun grew out of the Vulgar Latin verb misculare, 'to mix thoroughly', which itself traces back to the classical Latin miscere, simply 'to mix'. English borrowed the word in the 1300s, at first carrying the same sense of a confused mingling or even a skirmish, before settling into the calmer modern meaning of an assortment of different things gathered together. The very same Latin root for mixing surfaces in close relatives such as 'melee' (the chaotic crowd or brawl), 'meddle' (to mix yourself into others' affairs), and 'mixture' itself. Knowing that the heart of the word is the idea of mixing helps explain the unexpected spelling, since the d and the soft -ley ending are leftovers from that French route into English rather than a phonetic guide.

How the word is built

• medle- (to mix, from Old French)
• -ey (noun ending)