释义 |
hotchpotch /ˈhɒtʃpɒtʃ /(North American hodgepodge) noun1 [in singular] A confused mixture: a hotchpotch of uncoordinated services...- By combining a hodgepodge of miscellaneous claims with no apparent context, the author has created a scary image of impending doom.
- After three years of political stalemate, the governing party and the opposition - a hodgepodge of small political parties, business leaders and student groups - are finally sitting down at the negotiating table.
- The locally based Cancer Research Society, one of a hodgepodge of Canadian anti-cancer groups, receives no government cash and raises $11-million a year to figure out how to beat the disease.
Synonyms mixture, mix, mixed bag, assortment, assemblage, collection, selection, jumble, ragbag, miscellany, medley, patchwork, pot-pourri; melange, mess, mishmash, confusion, clutter, farrago informal mash-up rare gallimaufry, olio, olla podrida, salmagundi 2A mutton stew with mixed vegetables.To call the Scottish legislative programme a hotchpotch is an insult to stews....- Lunenburg puddin’ and hodgepodge, the way we do it, you really can't find it anywhere else.
OriginLate Middle English: variant of hotchpot. In the late Middle Ages English acquired the word hotchpot for ‘a confused mixture’. It came from French hochepot, which was formed from hocher ‘to shake’ and pot ‘pot’. Hotchpot is still used in English law in the context of joining together all of a dead person's property so that it can be divided equally. In its everyday sense, though, people quickly changed it to hotchpotch, so that the elements rhymed for emphasis. The same rhyming impulses then changed it to hodgepodge, now mainly used in North America.
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