(n.) A mingled mass; a confused mixture; a stew of various ingredients; a hodgepodge.
(n.) A blending of property for equality of division, as when lands given in frank-marriage to one daughter were, after the death of the ancestor, blended with the lands descending to her and to her sisters from the same ancestor, and then divided in equal portions among all the daughters. In modern usage, a mixing together, or throwing into a common mass or stock, of the estate left by a person deceased and the amounts advanced to any particular child or children, for the purpose of a more equal division, or of equalizing the shares of all the children; the property advanced being accounted for at its value when given.
Example Sentences:
(1) More than £600m has been spent on the massive universal credit project, intended to replace a hotchpotch of benefits and tax credit topups with a simple, single monthly payment to claimants that would include a "subsidy to work".
(2) As David Cameron prepared to deliver his "aspiration nation" speech to the Conservative conference in Birmingham, 110 miles away in Margaret Thatcher's former constituency a hotchpotch alliance of squatters, retired booksellers, local bloggers and international anti-capitalist activists whooped as a district judge blocked attempts to close a vibrant community library that has popped up in the shell of one controversially closed as part of the Conservative party's most radical experiment yet in shrinking local public services.
(3) The grimy streets of central St Pauli, a rough neighbourhood where sailors once passed their time on shore, are lined with a hotchpotch of trendy bars, clubs and music venues – as well as the handful of seedier establishments which made Hamburg infamous.
(4) The Marwood in The Lanes, for example, is a wonderful hotchpotch of reclaimed bits and pieces with old cupboard doors as table tops and even Apple Mac hard drive towers as stools.
(5) We knew what was required: in cases like ours, to stand any chance of meaningful success, you need a truckload of informational wherewithal, the will to fight, and the money to hire a good lawyer – which, at a stroke, scythes out millions of parents, who are left with only piecemeal help, and hotchpotch provision.
(6) We confront the problem with an unedifying hotchpotch of neuroses and political spasms that ensure we never truly see it in the round, never discuss it rationally and never get to grips with it.
(7) At the heart of every movie, all made on small budgets and drawing on a hotchpotch of British and European money, there has been a cause; from the Spanish civil war ( Land And Freedom ) to the Contra insurgency against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua ( Carla’s Song ), from trade union rights in the US ( Bread And Roses : the only film he has made in North America) to Ireland’s war of independence ( The Wind That Shakes The Barley ) and, most of all, the struggle for work, dignity and justice ( Raining Stones , Sweet Sixteen , It’s A Free World , My Name Is Joe , The Angels’ Share – basically all of them ).
(8) The deputy prime minister admits the plan has failed, blaming the creation of a "hotchpotch of schemes".
(9) Tarantino's genre hotchpotch might have made for something of a soundclash, but its highly entertaining din might be just the clarion call required to shake fresh life into the genre.
(10) Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, said Brown's statement was "nothing more than a hotchpotch of unrelated Whitehall schemes, a ministerial cut and paste job".
(11) She spent 18 months in the cabinet at the ministry of culture, overseeing a hotchpotch of responsibilities from ballet and broadband to table tennis and tourism.
(12) He, along with his predecessor, is too spineless to stand up for the gay minority, and exposes his church as incapable of living up to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 1, "all human beings are equal in dignity and rights", and nothing more than a hotchpotch of amoral stone-age superstition.
(13) It was a hotchpotch of a speech, providing neither inspiration nor challenge.
Ragbag
Definition:
Example Sentences:
(1) Moreover, for all its recent adoption of the odd leftwing populist policy (its sudden opposition to the bedroom tax, for instance), Ukip is still a ragbag of free-marketeers and continuity Thatcherites who might bond with their voters thanks to their social conservatism and antipathy to immigration – but have little meaningful to say about the economic reality of their lives.
(2) The putative bill has already been dismissed as a "ragbag of retreats" by some of those MPs on select committee responsible for scrutinising the bill, in their view botching the reform of the dual legal and political roles of the attorney general.
(3) The paranoid police have pursued a homosexual witch-hunt on this issue, egged on by media, Labour MPs and a ragbag of internet fantasists.” Scotland Yard declined to comment on Proctor’s press conference, although detectives had previously issued a statement saying officers found Nick’s allegations to be “credible and true”.
(4) With the mainstream meekly united behind that lost cause, it is no surprise if voters hunt around for ragbag alternatives.
(5) ), speech pathology (what is the ragbag called "hypertenseness"?
(6) It was in fact a ragbag of policy reheats and vague aspirations, an acknowledgement of defeat and a sign of panic.
(7) Popularly viewed as a motley ragbag of racist colonialists, Vichy sympathisers, antisemites and oddball royalists, Le Pen’s party was dismissed as a nasty coalition of history’s losers.
(8) A primary school teacher by day, his debut show, Spontaneous Comedian (Pleasance) , is a lovely ragbag of absurd juxtapositions and left-field observations.
(9) The new bill covers a ragbag of anti-crime measures including new rules on the retention of the DNA profiles of the innocent, stronger powers to tackle antisocial behaviour, the scrapping of stop and search forms and the introduction of a licensing regime for private wheelclamping businesses.
(10) I wanted to back-project rigour but start with a ragbag."
(11) They bring a welcome voice of sanity after a disastrous failure of planning intelligence about how to make a coherent place out of this ragbag of parts.
(12) Their departure has left a ragbag of contenders doing battle for the bedsit record player turntable.
(13) The Ladykillers tells the story of a ragbag group of criminals, led by the scheming Professor Marcus, who lodge with Mrs Wilberforce while planning a bank heist.
(14) It seemed an almost comic ambition for a party that was then still – as its leader cheerfully conceded – a ragbag of embarrassing “eccentrics”.
(15) A follower of Gurdjieff , the Russian mystic who introduced the west to a ragbag of eastern mysticism in the first part of the 20th century, Travers was more interested in excavating the archetypes that underpinned esoteric Christianity than dreaming up nursery pap.
(16) The Tories dismiss the ragbag of clauses – from treaty ratification to demos in Parliament Square – as pointless and cynical displacement activity by a dying regime.
(17) Yet somewhere between these performances, the long-ago knowing innocence of Rita and the ragbag of grotesques in which TV has so often cast her, there is another Julie Walters.
(18) The measures have been dismissed as a "ragbag of retreats" by some MPs, botching reform of the role of the attorney general.
(19) A ragbag collection of footsoldiers in the self-proclaimed "People's Army" of Ukip is struggling to keep pace as Roger Helmer strides through the back streets of Bingham, a Nottinghamshire market town once named as the best place in Britain to raise a family.
(20) The current ragbag of foundation trust governors, lay members of CCGs and patient participation groups is inadequate and Stevens really should be requiring a better game on citizen engagement.