Etymology From French pêle-mêle, from Old French pesle-mesle, apparently a rhyme based on the stem of mesler (“to mix, meddle”). Compare meddle, melee.
1
Hasty and uncontrolled.
Nor moody Beggars, ſtaruing for a time / Of pell-mell hauocke, and confusion.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 69, column 2:
These present the appearance of masses of water-worn gravel, mixed in the most pell mell confusion, the boulders being often of very large size; but I observed no striae, nor any of the blue tenacious clay of the Till, which it so much resembled.1883, Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, volume 4, page 204:
4 more examples
The whole district presents the most pell-mell throwing together imaginable.1924, Konrad Bercovici, Around the World in New York, page 134:
The pell mell, hell for leather traffic of Lagos was more pell mell, hell for leather than ever.1961, Charles J. Patterson, Letters relating to Africa south of the Sahara, especially to Nigeria, page 18:
The cattle are less disciplined, more pell-mell, heavy-footed, their hooves stamping the ground to mud in several places.2003, Audrey Joan Whitson, Teaching Places, page 50:
China’s pell-mell, brisk urbanization has in some ways made the challenge harder to face.2021 July 26, Steven Lee Myers, Keith Bradsher, Chris Buckley, “As China Boomed, It Didn’t Take Climate Change Into Account. Now It Must.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
pell-mell
adv
Etymology From French pêle-mêle, from Old French pesle-mesle, apparently a rhyme based on the stem of mesler (“to mix, meddle”). Compare meddle, melee.
1
In haste and chaos; uncontrolledly, confusedly.
But ſeeing that there the murdring Enemie, / Peſle-meſle, purſued them like a ſtorme of hayle, / They gan retyre vvhere Iuba vvas encampt; […][1594, Robert Garnier, translated by Thomas Kid [i.e., Thomas Kyd], Pompey the Great, His Faire Corneliaes Tragedie: […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Nicholas Ling, published 1595, →OCLC, act V:
Never was there a great battle fought more pell-mell, since war began; never was valor so completely thrown away.1861, George Wilkes, The Great Battle, page 27:
4 more examples
The table was covered with a confusion of papers, books, pamphlets, all heaped upon one another pell-mell; […][1884], [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “‘The Breaker has come up before Them’”, in Ishmael: […], volume I, London: John and Robert Maxwell, […], →OCLC, page 289:
Pell-mell they rushed for Inverness and safety, leaving the strange battlefield to the stalwart five.1905, Charles Sanford Terry, The Young Pretender, page 81:
A group of the reapers whom we had seen running from the fields were lying all pell-mell, their bodies crossing each other, at the bottom of it.1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
And the prompter our payments the more pell-mell the news came in and the more obligingly gruesome its detail.1996, Rodney Hall, The Island in the Mind, page 400: