melange means A mixture of different things; a disordered mixture. It carries an Arena rating of 1880, earned across 13 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, melange ranks #218 of 42,752 for Qualifying, #1,122 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,391 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,649 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say.
melange is pronounced /məˈlɑnʒ/.
Why “melange” is a great word
A mixture of diverse elements, often implying a somewhat disorderly or heterogeneous combination. From French mélange, from Middle French meslange, from Old French meslance ("set of diverse elements"), derived from mescler ("to mingle, mix up"), from Vulgar Latin *misculāre, from Latin misceō ("to mix") + the Frankish suffix *-ingo ("-ing"), first attested in English in the 1650s. Unlike "amalgam," which suggests a deliberate fusion into a new, coherent whole, or "medley," which implies a succession of distinct items, a mélange is a simultaneous, casual tumbling-together of disparates. It is the contents of a junk drawer where foreign coins nestle against dead batteries and a single earring, the layered noise of a crowded café, or the peculiar assortment of driftwood, sea-glass, and lost tackle gathered in a tidal pool—a testament to the world's persistent, undirected fertility.
Etymology
From French mélange, from Middle French mélange, meslange, from Old French meslance, meslinges (“set of diverse elements”), derived from mescler (“to mingle, mix up”) (modern French mêler), from Vulgar Latin *misculāre, from Latin misceō (“mix”) + -inges, a suffix from Frankish *-ingo (“-ing”). More at mix, -ing.
noun
- A mixture of different things; a disordered mixture.e.g.“The room was a melange of comic books and posters.”
- A Viennese coffee speciality, half steamed milk and half coffee.
- A large-scale breccia formed in the accretionary wedge over a subductional environment.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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