Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb In a jumbled, confused manner; helter-skelter.
- adverb In frantic disorderly haste; headlong.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Tumultuous; promiscuous; disorderly.
- noun A mêléc; a confused fight; disorder.
- With confused or indiscriminate violence, energy, or eagerness; indiscriminately; promiscuously; confusedly; in a disorderly mass or manner.
- noun A variant of
pall-mall . - To mix up promiscuously; pile in confused heaps.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun See
pall-mall .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Hasty ,uncontrolled . - adverb In
haste , uncontrolledly.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective with undue hurry and confusion
- adverb in a wild or reckless manner
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Nobody scored more than the Bulgarian's 20 league goals last season, and his finishing is hallmarked by the composure that would surely have brought order to Saturday's pell-mell chaos.
Manchester United lose killer instinct while Dimitar Berbatov waits 2011
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This was little more than a large house overstuffed with prize pieces salvaged during the pell-mell escape from the capital.
Fire The Sky W. Michael Gear 2011
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The chaotic retreat illustrated the often pell-mell nature of rebel operations, in which laborers and teachers with little training are left to find rides to the front in private vehicles.
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She offered nothing that Sophia had been brought up to consider as love-worthy or estimable, for what good qualities she had must be accepted with their opposites, in an inconsequential pell-mell of wheat and tares.
Commonplace 2010
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Anyway, the BIG story here is that one honest woman was able to do what pack of university trustees and fellows and so on couldn't or wouldn't do: stop ND's pell-mell pursuit of cozy relations with the politically correct even when it means honoring abortionism's standard bearer.
Former Laetare Medalist to deliver address at Notre Dame's commencement 2009
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The chaotic retreat illustrated the often pell-mell nature of rebel operations, in which laborers and teachers with little training are left to find rides to the front in private vehicles.
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This was little more than a large house overstuffed with prize pieces salvaged during the pell-mell escape from the capital.
Fire The Sky W. Michael Gear 2011
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I ran pell-mell down the bleachers, forgetting about my supposedly sprained ankle, and grabbed the nearest fan.
The Dark Side of Innocence Terri Cheney 2011
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The shortfall is widely blamed on the pell-mell panic inside MF Global to keep the securities firm alive long enough to arrange a sale.
Money From MF Global Feared Gone Scott Patterson 2012
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She offered nothing that Sophia had been brought up to consider as love-worthy or estimable, for what good qualities she had must be accepted with their opposites, in an inconsequential pell-mell of wheat and tares.
"One could love her for the only sufficient reason that one chose to." 2010
yarb commented on the word pell-mell
"The rooks were tumbling pell-mell among the violet clouds of autumn."
- Orlando, Virginia Woolf
February 7, 2008