miscellany

American  

[mis-uh-ley-nee, mi-sel-uh-nee] / ˈmɪs əˌleɪ ni, mɪˈsɛl ə ni /

noun

miscellanies plural

1. a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items.

2. a miscellaneous collection of literary compositions or pieces by several authors, dealing with various topics, assembled in a volume or book.

   Synonyms:

   anthology

3. miscellanies, a miscellaneous collection of articles or entries, as in a book.

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miscellany British  

/ mɪˈsɛlənɪ, ˈmɪsəˌleɪnɪ /

noun

1. a mixed assortment of items

2. (sometimes plural) a miscellaneous collection of essays, poems, etc, by different authors in one volume

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• miscellanies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of miscellany

First recorded in 1590–1600; Anglicized variant of miscellanea

Explanation

Miscellany is a collection of different sorts of things. If organization is not one of your strong points, your purse may contain a miscellany of surprising items. Miscellany comes from the Latin for "mix," and a miscellany is a mixture of things. If you don't clean your car out very often, there may be a miscellany of relics in the backseat: a flip flop left over from your last trip to the beach, a few stale French fries, your last report card, and maybe a magazine or two.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

miscellany miscellanies

The word “anthology” comes from the Greek for “gathering of flowers”—that is, a miscellany.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 19, 2025

The book isn’t exhaustive but instead a curated miscellany of non-sequiturs and the kind of dinner-party lore Seu delights in.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2025

Dr Veronese found the sonnet featured in a miscellany - a type of manuscript which contains a selection of texts from different authors on various subjects - stored at the Bodleian Library.

From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2025

The House released a negotiated short-term government funding bill this week, and a number of year-end priorities on health care, agriculture, and other miscellany were tacked on.

From Slate ● Dec. 21, 2024

The force of it knocked Anya’s armful of miscellany to the ground.

From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack

Like the two earlier miscellanies, this volume is Boswellian in its devotion to its subject and in its near-biblical bulk.

From New York Times ● Dec. 1, 2017

However, as it goes with the best musical miscellanies, Untitled Unmastered is also a tour through the artist’s sketchbook, sharing shifting moods and tangential thoughts amid the grander statements he’s known for.

From Slate ● Mar. 7, 2016

Fraser, Barry and Calasso’s miscellanies all belong to that sometimes cutesy, but usually captivating genre, “books about books.”

From Washington Post ● Dec. 2, 2015

They were compilers of knowledge, either utilitarian or speculative, who used chapters as a way of organizing large miscellanies.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 29, 2014

Of the prose miscellanies the so-called Relations "of different places in Europe," and "of a voyage to Mauritania," contain some of the cream of Hamilton's almost uniquely ironic narrative and commentary.

From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by Saintsbury, George