Saturday, September 3, 2011

gallimaufry



gallimaufry [ˌgæləˈmɔfri] n.

1.) A dish made by hashing up odds and ends of food; a hodge-podge, a ragout. rare exc. dial.
2.) transf. and fig. A heterogeneous mixture, a confused jumble, a ridiculous medley.
3.) A promiscuous assemblage (of persons).
4.) Said somewhat contemptuously of a person: A man of many accomplishments; a composite character. Now rare (O.E.D. 2nd Edition).

Etymology: French galimafrée, from Old French galimafree, sauce, ragout: probably galer, to make merry; + mafrer, to gorge oneself (from Middle Dutch moffelen, to open one's mouth wide, of imitative origin).

"—Ford: Well, I hope it be not so.
—Pistol: Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs: Sir John affects thy wife.
—Ford: Why, sir, my wife is not young.
—Pistol: He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor, Both young and old, one with another, Ford; He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend" (The Merry Wives of Windsor, William Shakespeare, 1602).

(Falstaff und sein Page, Adolf Schrödter, 1867)

21 comments:

mamtc said...

interesting word and interesting meanings. How would anyone know whether they are talking about food or people?

DEZMOND said...

what a delightful word! I wanna use it every day!

Unknown said...

Funny how that word reminds me of vomit and yet from experience I know that (most times) mixing up food equals a pretty good meal.

Debra She Who Seeks said...

So, a fancy-shmancy word for "dog's breakfast" then.

Curl Jung said...

A dish made by hashing up odds and ends of food is known as "Nau-Lakha" in hindi/urdu.

You should do a V-log. I'd love to hear your accent.

Mai Yang said...

yeah. confusing :(

what if I assumed it's food but they meant the other way? (am I correct? haha)

Ting Kubby said...

I'm gonna use this word next time i make a fry up from the remains of the sunday roast lol.

GMSoccerPicks said...

I will definitely use this one hahaha it sounds funny and for some reason the picture made me laugh, a lot.

Shaw said...

What an odd fat man in the painting

Shutterbug said...

So if I use last night's leftovers to make a casserole, does it mean it's a gallimaufry?

Anonymous said...

by the way, you look hot in that new climbing pic ;) keep that in mind lol

Bibi said...

What's that I see? A reference to Middle Dutch? "Moffelen" is still used in "wegmoffelen", which means "to hide quickly and secretively", sort of. Doesn't have much to do with a casserole.

Once Upon A Time... said...

lol this is such an interesting word!

jos xx

Anonymous said...

The world sounds and looks like what its definition is; a random assortment of different things.

Unknown said...

A gallimaufry dish eh? We call it 'chop suey'.

Michael Westside said...

This is a word that can describe 50% of my meals

Once Upon A Time... said...

re: enamored. that's a nice word. I had to check it out. you should list it here among these words. and maybe write my blog as an example. LOL.

jos xx

Once Upon A Time... said...

re: is that Shakespeare?
and obviously i was just joking.
I only won twice.

jos xx

D4 said...

@thinkingcap guy
Mmm, I could sure take a bite of that gallimaufry! (I meant that one guy. See, I'm a cannibal so this could be confusing to some people.)

Once Upon A Time... said...

re: ok your comment is not funny anymore. obviously i wanna win that's why I sent you a paragraph, right?
And yes, I'm not into material stuff only. I read Shakespeare you know...

jos xx

mjunta said...

picture is funny

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