hotchpotch, hotch-potch, n.
(ˈhɒtʃpɒtʃ)
Forms: 5–6 hoche poche, 6 hoche-poche, 6–7 hoch-poch, 6–8 hotch potch, 6– hotchpotch, hotch-potch.
[A corruption of prec., with riming assimilation of the second part of the compound to the first, as in reduplicated words.]
1. Cookery. A dish containing a mixture of many ingredients; spec. a mutton broth thickened with young vegetables of all sorts stewed together.
| 1583 Golding Calvin on Deut. lxxii. 443 We make a hotchpotch of halfe figges and half reysons as they say. 1692 Dryden Ess. Sat. Ess. (1882) 44 A kind of olla, or hotchpotch, made of several sorts of meats. 1797 Sporting Mag. IX. 327 [She] had got ready what is there [Scotland] called hotchpotch, for dinner. 1891 Mrs. Oliphant Railway Man I. xi. 178 The hotch-potch..was excellent. It is a soup made with lamb and all the fresh young vegetables. |
| attrib. 1851 Illustr. Catal. Gt. Exhib. 1060 Large tureen, or hotch-potch dish, with lid. |
2. fig. A mixture of heterogeneous things, a confused assemblage, a medley, jumble, farrago.
| 14..[see quot. 1386 in prec. 3.] 1549 Latimer 3rd Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 98 They..made a myngle mangle and a hotchpotch of it..partely poperye, partelye true religion mingeled together. 1605 Tryall Chev. iii. i. in Bullen O. Pl. III. 306 Hang the hotch-potch up in a fathom or two of match. 1652–62 Heylin Cosmogr. ii. (1682) 32 A Hotch⁓potch of all sorts of men. 1728 Wodrow Corr. (1843) III. 371 A hotch-potch of errors. 1783 Lemon Eng. Etymol. Pref. 4 The English language, which, say they, is only a hotch-potch, composed of all others. 1890 Huxley in 19th Cent. Nov. 761 That wonderful ethnological hotch-potch miscalled the Latin race. |
3. Eng. Law.
= hotchpot 2.
| 1602 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. iv. ii. 1586 If that fee-simple, and the fee taile be put together it is called hotch potch. 1646 J. Temple Irish Rebell. 9 note He assembled the whole Septs, and having put all their possessions together in hotch-potch, made a new partition among them. a 1656 Ussher Ann. vi. (1658) 189. |
| fig. 1838 Southey Lett. (1856) IV. 560 Throwing all the collections into hotch-potch, and then re-arranging the materials according to the subjects. |
4. as
adj. Like a hotchpotch or medley, confused.
| 1599 Marston Sco. Villanie iii. ix. 219 What hotch⁓potch giberidge doth the Poet bring? 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 87 Of those Drusian Robbers..and of this hotch-potch Religion. 1769 E. Bancroft Guiana 287 The hotch-potch officinal compositions of pharmacy. |
Hence
ˈhotch-potch v. trans., to make a hotchpotch of, to jumble
up;
ˈhotchpotchly a., of the nature of a hotchpotch, confusedly mingled.
| 1593 Nashe Christs T. (1613) 132 Scripture we hotch⁓potch together. 1596 ― Saffron Walden 77 He can hotch⁓potch whole Decades vp of nothing. 1674 R. Godfrey Inj. & Ab. Physic 181 Unmasked and singled from their hotch⁓potchly adjuncts. |