Word of the Day for Thursday December 11, 2003
gallimaufry \gal-uh-MAW-free\, noun:
A medley; a hodgepodge.

Today bilingual programs are conducted in a gallimaufry of around 80 tongues, ranging from Spanish to Lithuanian to Micronesian Yapese.
--Ezra Bowen, "For Learning or Ethnic Pride?" Time, July 8, 1985

Then the speech itself, and you have to feel sorry for TQMEM [The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty] having to read out this frightful drivel, this grim gallimaufry of cliches, jargon and outright lies.
--Simon Hoggart, "Grand tradition: Maltravers, Rouge, Garter, Skinner," The Guardian, November 27, 2003

Maran reports the daily jostlings and thrivings in a public school with 3,200 students, 185 teachers, 45 languages, a principal and five vice principals, five safety monitors, 62 sports teams and a gallimaufry of alternative programs, clubs and cliques.
--Colman McCarthy, "A Writer Goes Back to School," Washington Post, August 20, 2001


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Gallimaufry, originally meaning "a hash of various kinds of meats," comes from French galimafrée, from Old French, from galer, "to rejoice, to make merry" (source of English gala) + mafrer, "to eat much," from Medieval Dutch maffelen, "to open one's mouth wide."

Synonyms: assortment, medley, miscellany, mishmash, potpourri. Find more at