Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A miscellaneous collection; a hodgepodge.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A miscellaneous collection of things or persons; a confused mixture or medley.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Colloq. & Humorous A miscellaneous collection of things or persons; a confused mixture; a medley; a hodgepodge.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
collection containing a variety ofmiscellaneous things
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a motley assortment of things
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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I won't sink into pretension and argue that it is an art form, but I will say that it's far more than an omnium-gatherum of detritus, as its mocking gallery insists it is.
Adam Hanft: Irving Penn, Twitter, and the Everydayness of Life 2009
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In fact, there was every appearance that the tent had been for a long time used as a kind of store-room, the receptacle of a bandit's omnium-gatherum, and had been hastily prepared for unexpected inmates.
Nick of the Woods Robert M. Bird
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We have, in this little township, two "general shopkeepers," dealers in groceries, mops, calicoes, candles, and the usual "_omnium-gatherum_" of household requirements.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 Various
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Look at the party itself -- a veritable omnium-gatherum of political odds and ends, huddled together under the party blanket like household gods and barn-yard refuse after a hurricane.
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A livelier and more variegated omnium-gatherum was never assembled.
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At one of those remarkable omnium-gatherum receptions at the Tuileries, of which I have spoken in a former chapter, she heard an American lady, to whom Louis Philippe was talking of his American recollections and of various persons he had known there, say to him, “Oh, sire, they all retain the most lively recollections of your majesty's sojourn among them, and wish nothing more than that you should return among them again!”
What I Remember Trollope, Thomas A 1887
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A livelier and more variegated omnium-gatherum was never assembled.
Marse Henry (Volume 1) An Autobiography Henry Watterson 1880
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A livelier and more variegated omnium-gatherum was never assembled.
Marse Henry, Complete An Autobiography Henry Watterson 1880
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And the dinginess of the article produced at last out of an omnium-gatherum sort of kitchen cupboard, made an ominous impression upon the country girl, accustomed
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The book, a collection of short stories, is an omnium-gatherum of works by various writers.
addendumb commented on the word omnium-gatherum
a miscellaneous collection
probably a “jocular imitation of law Latin�?
September 1, 2007
sionnach commented on the word omnium-gatherum
I wonder what the plural form of this word is.
October 8, 2007
mollusque commented on the word omnium-gatherum
OED2 gives the plural as "omnium gatherums", rarely "omnium gathera" (it doesn't use the hyphen in its headword). It also gives adjectival and adverbial definitions, and another nounal one: "A kind of boisterous dance known in mid-17th cent. England, and perh. identical with the cushion-dance...or trenchmore.
See omnigatherum.
November 12, 2007