English

Alternative forms

• pell mell
• pellmell

Adjective

pell-mell ‎(comparative more pell-mell, superlative most pell-mell)

1. Hasty, uncontrolled.
   • 1597, William Shakespeare, The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, Act V, Scene 1,

     Nor moody beggars, starving for a time / Of pellmell havoc and confusion.

   • 1883, Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, Volume 4, page 204,

     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.

   • 1924, Konrad Bercovici, Around the World in New York, page 134,

     The whole district presents the most pell-mell throwing together imaginable.

   • 1961, Charles J. Patterson, Letters relating to Africa south of the Sahara, especially to Nigeria, page 18,

     The pell mell, **** for leather traffic of Lagos was more pell mell, **** for leather than ever.

   • 2003, Audrey Joan Whitson, Teaching Places, page 50,

     The cattle are less disciplined, more pell-mell, heavy-footed, their hooves stamping the ground to mud in several places.

Translations

Adverb

pell-mell ‎(not comparable)

1. In haste, uncontrolledly, confusedly.
   • 1861, George Wilkes, The Great Battle, page 27,

     Never was there a great battle fought more pell-mell, since war began; never was valor so completely thrown away.

   • 1905, Charles Sanford Terry, The Young Pretender, page 81,

     Pell-mell they rushed for Inverness and safety, leaving the strange battlefield to the stalwart five.

   • 1996, Rodney Hall, The Island in the Mind, page 400,

     And the prompter our payments the more pell-mell the news came in and the more obligingly gruesome its detail.

   • 2006, Marion Woods, Getting Ready, 2009, A Spiritual Journey Through Poetry with Marion Woods, page 48,

     Some are already packed up well; / Others are at it, most pell mell.

Translations

See also

• helter-skelter
• willy-nilly
• Pall Mall
• The Mall