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medley

Etymology and origin of the English word medley

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Formation
Inherited
Inherited from
Middle English medlee

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈmɛdli/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English medlee,[2][3][4] from Anglo-Norman medlee (“mixture; fight”),[2][5][6][3][4] a noun use of the past participle of medler “to mix, meddle”,[2][3][4] from Vulgar Latin *misculāre “to mix”.[5] It is related to meddle and melee.[2][5][6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Hand-to-hand combat or fighting (about 1300).[6][7]

Semantic evolution

The sense of combat is obsolete or archaic.[6][7][3] From the 14th century the word meant cloth woven from wool of different colours,[6][7] and from about 1400 any mixture.[6][7] A musical composition made of parts from different sources is recorded from 1626,[7][6] and in sport a swimming race combining four strokes is a 20th-century sense.[1]

Timeline

  • about 1300 – combat, fighting.[6][7]
  • 1438 – cloth of mixed colours.[7][5]
  • about 1440 – a mixture.[7][6]
  • 1626 – a musical medley.[7][6]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A mixed assortment; a jumble or hodgepodge.
  2. A piece of music combining tunes or passages from different sources.
  3. A swimming race combining butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.
  4. (archaic) A melee.

Adjective

  1. (archaic) Mixed or mingled.

Word family

  • chance-medley
  • individual medley
  • meddle
  • melee

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Medley.” Etymologically, 11 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/medley. Accessed 12 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·