Farraginous

WORD OF THE DAY


farraginous \ fuh-RAJ-uh-nus \ adjective


Definition
1: consisting of a confused mixture


2: formed of various materials in no fixed order or arrangement


Examples
The large box at the hotel's lost and found desk contained a farraginous assortment of hats, umbrellas, cell phones, and other personal items.


"The next noise was the resonant but farraginous sound of twisted metal; a nightmarish squeal followed by eerie silence, as if the night held its breath with me."
— Patti Callahan Henry, Coming up for Air, 2011


Did You Know?
Farraginous is the adjective connected with farrago. In Latin, the stem farragin- and the noun farrago both mean "mixture" and, more specifically, "a mixture of grains for cattle feed." They derive from far, the Latin name for spelt, a type of grain.
In the 1600s, English speakers began using farrago as a noun meaning "hodgepodge" and farraginous as an adjective meaning "consisting of a mixture." The creation of the adjective was simply a matter of adding the adjectival suffix -ous to farragin- (although at least one writer had previously experimented with farraginary, employing a different adjectival suffix).