melange

See also: Melange, mélange, and mélangé

English

WOTD – 1 December 2008

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /məˈlɑnʒ/, /meɪ-/, /-ˈlɑndʒ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

melange (plural melanges)

1. A mixture of different things; a disordered mixture.

   The room was a melange of comic books and posters.

2. A Viennese coffee speciality, half steamed milk and half coffee.
3. (geology) A large-scale breccia formed in the accretionary wedge over a subductional environment.

Alternative forms

• mélange

Synonyms

• (collection of a variety of things): assortment, farrago, hodgepodge, hotchpotch, mingle-mangle, mishmash, mixture, omnium-gatherum, ragbag
• See also Thesaurus:hodgepodge

Translations

collection containing a variety of miscellaneous things

• Bulgarian: смесица (bg) f (smesica)
• Czech: směs (cs) f
• Danish: blanding c
• Faroese: blandingur m
• Finnish: sekamelska (fi)
• German: Melange (de) f
• Polish: mieszanina (pl) f, melanż (pl) m
• Romanian: melanj (ro) n
• Russian: вся́кая вся́чина (ru) f (vsjákaja vsjáčina), мешани́на (ru) f (mešanína), сбо́рная соля́нка (ru) f (sbórnaja soljánka)
• Slovak: zmes (sk) f
• Spanish: mezcolanza (es) f

Viennese coffee speciality

• Bulgarian: меланж (melanž)
• Finnish: melange
• German: Melange (de) f

Anagrams

• gleeman