Other forms: medleys
A medley is a race using each of the stroke in turn, or a mixture. The individual medley, a medley relay, a medley of songs.
In swimming the individual medley goes butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle, and the relay uses a different order because of how the starts work. In music a medley strings tunes together, and the general sense is any mixture.
1nounmedleyA race using each of the strokes in turn.
“He swam the butterfly leg of the medley relay for his team.”
medley is a mixture.
Old French medlee means a mixture, from a Latin verb meaning to mix. Melee and meddle are relatives.
Proto-Indo-European
*meyḱ-
Medieval Latin
misculō — to mix
Old French
medlee
Anglo-Norman
medlee
Middle English
medle
English, today
medley
From Middle English medle, from Anglo-Norman medlee, Old French medlee, from the feminine past participle of early Medieval Latin misculō (“to mix”). Compare meddle. a doublet of melee.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA