▪ I. hodge-podge, n.
(ˈhɒdʒpɒdʒ)
Forms: 5 hogpoch, 6 hogepotche, 6–7 hodge-potch, 7 hodg-podge, -poge, (hogg-podg, hodge-bodge), 7–8 hodg-podg, 7– hodge-podge.
[A corruption of hotchpotch; prob. assimilated to the familiar personal name Hodge.]
1. A dish made of a mixture of various kinds of meat, vegetables, etc., stewed together; a haricot; esp. in Sc. = hotchpotch 1.
| 1622 Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d' Alf. II. 275 A hodge⁓podge of boyled mutton, that was nothing but mammockes. 1641 News fr. Hell, Rome, etc. in Harl. Misc. (Malh.) IV. 398 This covered mess is a gallimawfry; or, as the Flemings calls it, a hodge-podge, wherein are sundry meats stewed together. 1658 Phillips, A Hodge-podge, or Hotch-pot, a Hachee, or flesh cut to pieces, and sodden together with Herbs [1706 (ed. Kersey) Also any kind of cold mixture of Things]. 1699 W. Dampier Voy. II. ii. 38 The little Pieces of Beef were like Plums in our Hodg-podg. 1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 141 A hodge-podge of Mutton. 1843 Lefevre Life Trav. Phys. III. iii. xiv. 285 A basin of sour pea-soup, as thick as hodgepodge. |
2. contemptuous. A clumsy mixture of ingredients.
| 1615 G. Sandys Trav. i. 65 Hodgpodges made of flower, milke, and hony. 1673 Charac. Coffee-Ho. in Harl. Misc. (1810) VI. 467 As you have a hodge-podge of drinks, such too is your company. 1694 Westmacott Script. Herb. 21 The Oyntment commonly sold in the shops..generally a sophisticated hodg-podge. 1803 Med. Jrnl. X. 265 Who place greater confidence in the unknown hodge podge of a stone-mason or a gingerbread-baker, than in the skill of an honest and able regular practitioner. |
3. A heterogeneous mass or agglomeration; a medley, farrago, gallimaufrey.
[As to the origin of this sense cf. hotchpot 3.]
| 1426 Audelay Poems 29 Cast ham in a hogpoch togedur fore to daunce. 1561 J. Daus tr. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573) 58 Many at this day make an hogepotche of papistrie and the Gospell. 1579 E. K. Ded. to Spenser's Sheph. Cal., They haue made our English tongue a gallimaufray or hodge⁓podge of al other speches. 1653 Walton Angler xi. 216 'Tis a hodgepodge of business, And mony, and care. 1762 Kames Elem. Crit. (1763) I. viii. 389 A perfect hodge-podge of chearful and melancholy representations. 1864 Lowell Fireside Trav., Italy 202 He [a horse] treated me to a hodge-podge of all his several gaits at once. |
† b. See quot. and cf. hodge-podge act in 5. Obs.
| 1793 J. Pearson Polit. Dict. 29 Hodge-Podge, the name of a bill passed at the end of the Session, to lick up every little thing forgot through the negligence of the Secretary of the Treasury, or the hurry of business. |
4. quasi-adv. In confusion, promiscuously.
| 1848 Lowell Fab. Critics 544 Roots, wood, bark, and leaves..clapt hodge-podge together, they don't make a tree. |
5. attrib. or as adj. Of the composition of hodge-podge or a heterogeneous mixture; hodge-podge act, a name for a legislative act embracing a number of incongruous matters: cf. also 3 b.
| 1602 Life T. Cromwell i. ii. 80 Time who doth abuse the cheated world, And fills it full of hodge-podge bastardy. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. ii. v. 47 Take warning, that they make no more Hodge-podge Divinity. 1766 Barrington Observ. Stat. (1796) 449 Thrown together in that very strange confusion which hath now obtained the name of a hodge-podge act. 1796 Rep. Ho. Com. (1803) XIV. 35 note, Hodge Podge Acts, these have been discontinued of late years, but the statute book abounds with them. 1842 P. Parley's Ann. III. 16 What is called a hodge-podge sea—that is, a sea which is met on the cross by a cross wind, with a cross tide, according to nautical explanation. 1861 Macm. Mag. May 31 The 23 Geo. III. c. 26 is quoted by the commissioners as a specimen of what is familiar to lawyers as a Hodge-Podge Act. 1878 S. Walpole Hist. Eng. II. 66 A hodge-podge committee on penal laws, prisons, Botany Bay, and forgery. |
▪ II. hodge-podge, v.
[f. prec. n.]
1. trans. To make a hodge-podge of; to mix up in disorder.
| 1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 137 To hodge-podge a Hare. 1814 F. Burney Wanderer I. 12 Lest it should..be hodge-podged into a conspiracy. 1883 Sword & Trowel Feb. 89/1 A collection of other writers' views mingled with scraps of hymns..hodge-podged together. |
2. intr. To form a hodge-podge. Hence hodge-podging ppl. a., heterogeneous.
| 1772 Gentl. Mag. XLII. 191/1 A hodge-podging habit, 'twixt fidler and beau. |