chance-medley
(ˌtʃɑːnsˈmɛdlɪ, -æ-)
[a. AF. chance medlée mixed or mingled chance or casualty: see chance; medler is a var. of mesler to mix, mingle: see meddle. From the fact that medley is also a n., and chance medley a possible combination in the sense of ‘fortuitous medley’, the meaning has often been mistaken, and the expression misused.]
1. Law. Accident or casualty not purely accidental, but of a mixed character. Chiefly in manslaughter by chance-medley (for which later writers often use chance-medley itself): ‘the casual killing of a man, not altogether without the killer's fault, though without an evil intent; homicide by misadventure; homicide mixt’ (Cowel).
| 1494 Fabyan vii. 499 Sir Thomas de Agorne..was by Chaunce medley slayne of a Bryton knyght. 1530–1 Act 22 Hen. VIII, xiv, Sayntuary for that..offence of..manslaughter by chaunce medly. 1546 Langley Pol. Verg. De Invent. iii. viii. 74 b, That had doen any murther unware or by chauncemedly. 1577 Holinshed Chron. II. 74 William Rufus..received his deaths wound by casualtie or chancemedlie. 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 390 If a man had committed manslaughter by chauncemedley. 1620 J. Wilkinson Treat. Coroners & Sherifes 9 To put a difference betweene homicide by chaunce-medley and murder. 1631 J. Taylor (Water P.) Turn Fort. Wheel (1848) Pref., Is hap turn'd haples, or is chance chance medly? 1670 Blount Law Dict., Manslaughter..differs from Murder, because it is not done with foregoing malice; and from Chancemedley, because it has a present intent to kill. 1742 Lond. Mag. 359 The Jury found it Chance Medley. 1855 G. Brimley Ess. 80 Why does..Hamlet after murdering Polonius die by chancemedley? |
b. fig.
| 1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. iii. ii. 155 If without thine intention..by chancemedly thou hittest Scripture in ordinary discourse, yet fly to the city of refuge, and pray to God to forgive thee. a 1745 Swift Wks. (1841) II. 116 By mere chance-medley shot his own fortune dead with a single text. |
2. Inadvertency, haphazard or random action, into which chance largely enters. (Erroneously put for ‘pure chance’, and for ‘a fortuitous medley or confusion’.)
| 1583 Fulke Defence vii. 319 You make them in the case of chance medley, that have translated ‘sheol’ a grave. 1645 Milton Tetrach. (1851) 213 This is true in the generall right of marriage, but not in the chance medley of every particular match. 1785 Cowper Tirocin. 858 Whom thou wilt chuse..Is all chance-medley and unknown to me. 1849 F. B. Head Stokers & P. viii. (1851) 72 The strange chance⁓medley of objects before us. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 70 Left to the guidance of unreason and chance medley. |
3. attrib.
| 1822 W. Irving Braceb. Hall xxvii. 247 Having been handled rather roughly..in the chance-medley affair of May-day. 1844 Disraeli Coningsby iii. ii. 93 Such lax, chance-medley maxims. 1853 Sir J. Herschel Pop. Lect. Sc. iv. §22 (1873) 159 By a simple chance-medley confusion. |