gallimaufry

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English[edit]

WOTD – 14 June 2017

Etymology[edit]

A ragout or gallimaufry (sense 1) made with hearts and lungs and served with a Semmelknödel (bread dumpling) at a restaurant in Vienna, Austria

From French galimafrée, from Old French calimafree (“stew of various kinds of meats”); further etymology uncertain, but possibly from a combination of Old French galer (“to have fun, to enjoy oneself”) and Old Northern French (Picard) mafrer (“to eat gluttonously”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɡa.lɪˈmɔː.fɹi/
  • Hyphenation: gal‧li‧mau‧fry
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)

Noun[edit]

gallimaufry (countable and uncountable, plural gallimaufries)

  1. (dated, countable, uncountable) A hash of various kinds of meats, a ragout.
    • 1840, A[ndrew] A[llen] Harwood, “Mess-table Chat”, in William E[vans] Burton, editor, The Cyclopædia of Wit and Humor; Containing Choice and Characteristic Selections from the Writings of the Most Eminent Humorists of America, Ireland, Scotland, and England, volume I, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, 443 & 445 Broadway; London: 16 Little Britain, published 1867, →OCLC, page 185, column 2:
      At length, having discussed in turn pilaus, keebaubs, ollas, and a legion of gallimaufrys not mentioned in the classic pages of Kitchener and Ude, the cook's brain became completely addled by the elaborate and conflicting directions bestowed upon him; […]
    • 1873 July, “Geographical Notes”, in American Educational Monthly: A Magazine of Popular Instruction & Literature, volume X, New York, N.Y.: J. W. Sehermehorn & Co., →OCLC, page 312:
      I have tried many times, but always without success, to ascertain the average daily ration consumed by the Chinese railroad laborer, as a means of comparing their value with that of Americans. The reason this cannot be obtained is because they eat so many oily gallimaufries, alliaceous stews and indescribable vegetable hotchpotches, of which the ingredients are principally brought from China and have Chinese names.
    • 2008, Taillevent [pseudonym; Guillaume Tirel], “Gallimaufrey”, in Jim Chevallier, transl., How to Cook a Peacock: Le Viandier, 3rd edition, North Hollywood, Calif.: Chez Jim, →ISBN, pages 16–17:
      For gallimaufrey, roast poultry or capons, and cut into pieces. After fry with lard or goose lard. When they are fried, put in wine and verjuice. For spices, put some ginger powder and, to thicken, cameline, and a moderate amount of salt.
  2. (figuratively) Any absurd medley, an elaborate mishmash
    Synonyms: hodgepodge, olio, potpourri; see also Thesaurus:hodgepodge
    • 1579, Edmund Spenser, “[The Epistle]”, in The Shepheardes Calender: Conteyning Tvvelue Æglogues Proportionable to the Twelue Monethes. Entitled to the Noble and Vertuous Gentleman Most Worthy of All Titles both of Learning and Cheualrie M. Philip Sidney, London: Printed by Hugh Singleton, dwelling in Creede Lane neere vnto Ludgate at the signe of the gylden Tunne, and are there to be solde, →OCLC; republished London: Printed by Bar[tholomew] Alsop for Iohn Harrison the elder, and are to bee solde at his shop at the signe of the golden Anker in Pater Noster Row, →OCLC, in The Faerie Queene: The Shepheards Calendar: Together with the Other Works of England’s Arch-Poët, Edm. Spenser: Collected into One Volume, and Carefully Corrected, [London]: Printed by H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes, 1617, →OCLC:
      [O]ur mother tongue, which truly of it ſelfe is both ful enough for proſe, and ſtately enough for verſe, hath long time beene counted moſt bare and barren of both. Which default, when as ſome endeuoured to ſalue and recure, they patched vp the holes with peeces and ragges of other languages; borrowing here of the French, there of the Italian, euery where of the Latine, not weighing how ill thoſe tongues accord with themſelues, but much worſe with ours: So how they haue made our Engliſh tongue a gallimaufrey or hodgepodge of all other ſpeeches.
    • 1648, [Clement Walker], “[The Epistle]”, in Relations and Observations, Historical and Politick, upon the Parliament Begun Anno Dom. 1640. Divided into II. Books: 1. The Mystery of the Two Junto’s, Presbyterian and Independent. 2. The History of Independency, &c. Together with an Appendix, Touching the Proceedings of the Independent Faction in Scotland, [London?]: [s.n.], →OCLC:
      Reader, Gentle or ungentle, I write to all, knowing that all have now got almoſt an equall ſhare and intereſt in this Gallimaufry or Hotchpot which our Grandee Pſeudo-Politicians with their negative and demoliſhing Councils have made, both of Church and Commonwealth: […]
    • 1802 September, “Art. XIV. Scotish[sic] Poems of the Sixteenth Century. Two Volumes. 8vo. 380pp. 10s. 6d. Constable, Edinburgh; Verner and Hood, London. 1801.”, in Robert Nares, editor, The British Critic, volume XX, London: Printed for F[rancis] and C[harles] Rivington, no. 62, St. Paul's Church-yard, →OCLC, page 315:
      We frankly confeſs, that a different ſpecies of ſolicitude is, in the preſent inſtance, excited in us, as Britiſh Critics; a ſolicitude for the credit of the compiler, a ſolicitude for the honour of his countrymen, on account of this crude, incongruous, farrago; this gallimaufry of Scottiſh antiquarianiſm.
    • 1980, Ruth Nevo, “Shakespeare’s New Comedy”, in Comic Transformations in Shakespeare, London, New York, N.Y.: Methuen & Co., →ISBN, page 1:
      [William] Shakespeare's early comedies are a gallimaufry of experiments, but each plays its part in the gradual conquest of the medium, the increasing mastery of its complex expressive capacities.
    • 1985, J. Derrick McClure, “The Pinkerton Syndrome”, in Chapman: Scotland's Quality Literary Magazine, Edinburgh: Chapman Magazine and Publications, →OCLC, pages 2–8; reprinted in Scots and Its Literature (Varieties of English around the World, General Series; 14), Amsterdam; Philadelphia, Pa., John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1996, →ISBN, page 57:
      The language of writers who are safely dead, and can be studied without fear of their exerting a subversive influence, bears the respectable label 'old Scots dialect'; the same tongue spoken by the living compatriots of these writers is 'bad grammar'. […] This attitude is of course not new; though perhaps seldom expressed so blatantly. I call it the Pinkerton syndrome, after one of the many memorable figures in out national gallimaufray of scholarly eccentrics. John Pinkerton (1758–1826), poet, critic, historian, dramatist and Celtophobe, in 1786 produced a book, entitled Ancient Scotish Poems, never before in print: […]
    • 2014, William Logan, “A Critic's Notebook”, in Guilty Knowledge, Guilty Pleasure: The Dirty Art of Poetry, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 306:
      […] what students are taught instead is a gallimaufry of "texts".

Alternative forms[edit]

Translations[edit]

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