mishmash
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of mishmash
1425–75; late Middle English; gradational formation based on mash 1
Explanation
A mishmash is a random bunch of odds and ends. Many people have a mishmash of things in their basement or garage. A pile of old keys, one sock, four paper clips, and a water bottle? Total mishmash. Many houses have one kitchen drawer full of a mishmash of pens, rubber bands, carryout menus, and gum, for example. If you write a last-minute research paper, you might wind up with a mishmash of random ideas and opinions. The word was originally spelled with a hyphen, mish-mash, and before that it was mysse-masche, which had to do with mash, as in a bunch of soft food chucked together and fed to pigs. Another word for mishmash is hodgepodge.
Vocabulary lists containing mishmash
Stargirl
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"Mireya Mayor: Explorer/Correspondent"
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Wink
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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.
At the time, the bank was a mishmash of financial firms that had been recently cobbled together.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 18, 2026
This was a mishmash of ideas with no clear identification marks.
From BBC • Feb. 11, 2026
And on Thursday, he raised the possibility of a mixed Supreme Court decision resulting in “some kind of a mishmash of, ‘you can do this, you can’t do that.’”
From MarketWatch • Jan. 8, 2026
We need to talk about that “Clueless” scene at the hospital where, to cheer up Molly, Nikki begins a mishmash of performances.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 7, 2025
Even that odd word, the mishmash of two disciplines, was a sign of new times.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
