chance-medley
Americannoun
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a killing occurring during a sudden and unpredicted encounter.
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aimless and random action.
noun
Etymology
Origin of chance-medley
First recorded in 1485–95, chance-medley is from Anglo-French chance medlee
Vocabulary lists containing chance-medley
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But in his heart he thought, My unlucky protegee has with this luckless answer shot dead, by a kind of chance-medley, her only hope of success.
From The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 2 by Sir Walter Scott
While this was transacting upon the quarter-deck, a chance-medley fight was going on throughout the ship.
From Astoria, or, anecdotes of an enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains by Washington Irving
Did any man ever identify the bed he slept in, the table he ate at, half a century ago, in the chance-medley of second-hand—third-hand—furniture his father's insolvency or his own consigned it to?
From When Ghost Meets Ghost by William Frend De Morgan
One is that Marryat had the true quality of the craftsman, as distinguished from the amateur or the chance-medley man who has a lucky inspiration.
From The English Novel by George Saintsbury
Indeed, I am inclined to think the old man bore some peevish recollection of having been handled rather roughly by the gipsy, in the chance-medley affair of May-day.
From Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists by Washington Irving
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
