farrago

Borrowed from Latin farrāgō (“mixed fodder; mixture, hodgepodge”), from far (“spelt (a kind of wheat), coarse meal, grits”) (English farro).

• IPA^(key): /fəˈɹeɪɡoʊ/, /fəˈɹɑːɡoʊ/

farrago (plural farragos or farragoes)

1. A collection containing a confused variety of miscellaneous things.

   Synonyms: hodgepodge, hotchpotch, melange, mingle-mangle, mishmash, oddments, odds and ends, omnium-gatherum, ragbag

   • a. 1900, William Barclay Squire, Balfe, Michael William, article in Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 3,

     Balfe's next work, 'The Maid of Artois,' was written to a libretto furnished by Bunn, the first of those astonishing farragoes of balderdash which raised the Drury Lane manager to the first rank amongst poetasters.

   • 1911, Drama, 11f: Modern English Drama, article in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition,

     Hastily adapted by slovenly hacks, their librettos (often witty in the original) became incredible farragos of metreless doggrel and punning ineptitude.

   • 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 72

     Or, This is a farrago of absurdity, I could never feel anything of the sort myself.

   • 2005 November 7, Toronto Star,

     The original script is a complicated farrago of intertwined greed and lust, with marriages being planned and hearts being broken in order to accumulate fortunes as well as romance.

• See also Thesaurus:hodgepodge

• farraginous

• farro

• bric-a-brac
• eclectic
• grab bag
• heteroclite
• miscellany

far (“spelt”) +‎ -āgō

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /farˈraː.ɡoː/

farrāgō f (genitive farrāginis); third declension

1. A kind of hash
2. Mixture, hodgepodge

Third declension.

• Catalan: farratge
• English: farrago, farraginous
• Galician: ferraña, ferrán
• Italian: farragine, fraina
• Portuguese: farragem
• Sardinian: farràine, farrani, forrani
• Spanish: herrén, fárrago, rain

• farrago in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• farrago in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• farrago in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• farrago in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette