farrago

See also: fárrago

English

WOTD – 6 September 2011

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin farrāgō (“mixed fodder; mixture, hodgepodge”), from far (“spelt (a kind of wheat), coarse meal, grits”). Doublet of farro.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fəˈɹeɪɡoʊ/, /fəˈɹɑːɡoʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

Noun

farrago (plural farragos or farragoes)

1. A collection containing a confused variety of miscellaneous things.

   Synonyms: hodgepodge, melange, mingle-mangle; see also Thesaurus:hodgepodge

   • 1885 July, “A Forgotten Pamphleteer”, in Tinsleys’ Magazine, volume 37, London: Tinsley Brothers, page 84:

     Back in Paris, where all men adrift naturally float, he succeeded in publishing a fantastic novel, “Sortie d’un Rêve,” a farrago of all that is most foolish in the earlier romantic authors, with here and there a racy turn—“a personal note,” M. Zola would say.

   • a. 1900, William Barclay Squire, “Balfe, Michael William”, in Dictionary of National Biography, volume 3:

     Balfe's next work, 'The Maid of Artois,' was written to a libretto furnished by Bunn, the first of those astonishing farragoes of balderdash which raised the Drury Lane manager to the first rank amongst poetasters.

   • 1911, “Drama, 11f: Modern English Drama”, in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition:

     Hastily adapted by slovenly hacks, their librettos (often witty in the original) became incredible farragos of metreless doggrel and punning ineptitude.

   • 1929 September, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, uniform edition, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, […], published 1931 (April 1935 printing), →OCLC, page 72:

     Or, This is a farrago of absurdity, I could never feel anything of the sort myself.

   • 2005 November 7, Toronto Star:

     The original script is a complicated farrago of intertwined greed and lust, with marriages being planned and hearts being broken in order to accumulate fortunes as well as romance.

Derived terms

• farraginous

Related terms

• farro

Translations

confused miscellany

• Armenian: շիլափլավ (hy) (šilapʻlav)
• Bashkir: ваҡ-төйәк (vaq-töyək)
• Bulgarian: смесица (bg) f (smesica), бъркотия (bg) f (bǎrkotija)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: sekamelska (fi)
• French: mélange (fr) m, méli-mélo (fr) m, fatras (fr) m
• Latin: farrāgō f
• Portuguese: gororoba (pt) f, farragem f
• Russian: вся́кая вся́чина (ru) f (vsjákaja vsjáčina)
• Spanish: fárrago (es)

See also

• bric-a-brac
• eclectic
• grab bag
• heteroclite
• miscellany

Latin

Etymology

far (“emmer”) +‎ -āgō

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /farˈraː.ɡoː/, [färˈräːɡoː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /farˈra.ɡo/, [färˈräːɡo]

Noun

farrāgō f (genitive farrāginis); third declension

1. A kind of hash, mixed fodder for animals
2. Mixture, hodgepodge

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	farrāgō	farrāginēs
Genitive	farrāginis	farrāginum
Dative	farrāginī	farrāginibus
Accusative	farrāginem	farrāginēs
Ablative	farrāgine	farrāginibus
Vocative	farrāgō	farrāginēs

Descendants

• Italo-Romance:
  • Old Italian: farraggine
  • Sardinian: farràine, farrani, forrani
    • → Italian: ferrana
• North Italian
  • Lombard: fraina
    • → Italian: fraina
• Occitano-Romance:
  • Old Occitan: farratge, ferrage
    • Occitan: ferratge
  • Catalan: farratge
• West Iberian:
  • Old Galician-Portuguese: ferrãe
    • Galician: ferraña, ferrán
    • Portuguese: ferrã
  • Old Spanish: ferranne, ferraine, ferrén
    • Spanish: herrén, rain
• Borrowings:
  • → English: farrago, farraginous
  • → Italian: farragine
  • → Portuguese: farragem (semi-learned)
  • → Spanish: fárrago

References

• “farrago”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “farrago”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• farrago in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• farrago in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.