Salmagundi
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A food consisting of chopped meat and pickled herring, with oil, vinegar, pepper, and onions. countable, uncountable
- 2 cooked meats and eggs and vegetables usually arranged in rows around the plate and dressed with a salad dressing wordnet
- 3 Hence, any mixture of various ingredients; an olio or medley; a potpourri; a miscellany. countable, uncountable
"Partly too it reflected the nature of Revolutionary politics throughout the 1790s, which was invariably a kind of inspired bricolage, which involved yoking together a wide range of pre-existent elements into an unanticipated and constantly changing salmagundi of political forms."
- 4 a collection containing a variety of sorts of things wordnet
Example
More examples"Partly too it reflected the nature of Revolutionary politics throughout the 1790s, which was invariably a kind of inspired bricolage, which involved yoking together a wide range of pre-existent elements into an unanticipated and constantly changing salmagundi of political forms."
Etymology
From French salmigondis (“seasoned salt meats”), from Middle French salmigondin, probably related to Middle French salomene (“hodgepodge of meats or fish cooked in wine”), from Old French salemine.
Related phrases
More for "salmagundi"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.