medley

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Combat, fighting; a battle.

   Thenne came the kyng of Irland and the kynge of the stryete marches to rescowe syre Tristram and sire Palomydes / There beganne a grete medle / & many knyghtes were smyten doune on bothe partyes / and alweyes sir launcelot spared sir Tristram / and he spared hym.

2. 2
   noun

   A collection or mixture of miscellaneous things.

   A fruit medley.

3. 3
   noun

   A collection of related songs played or mixed together as a single piece.

   They played a medley of favorite folk songs as an encore.

4. 4
   noun

   A cloth of mixed colours.

   Otherwise , as our Saviour noteth , when the old Cloth was joyned to the new , it made no good medley , but the Rent was made the wors.

Simplified etymology

Medley originally meant a fight and is the same word as melee. It came from French and ultimately from Latin misculare, “to mix,” reflecting the mingling of people in close combat. The general sense “mixture” later produced uses such as a continuous selection of songs in the seventeenth century and a swimming event using different strokes in the twentieth.

From Middle English medle, from Anglo-Norman medlee, Old French medlee, from the feminine past participle of early Medieval Latin misculō (“to mix”). Compare meddle. Doublet of melee.

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