Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adv. In a jumbled, confused manner; helter-skelter.
- adv. In frantic disorderly haste; headlong: "I went to work pell-mell, blotted several sheets of paper with choice floating thoughts” ( Washington Irving).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- With confused or indiscriminate violence, energy, or eagerness; indiscriminately; promiscuously; confusedly; in a disorderly mass or manner.
- n. A variant of pall-mall.
- Tumultuous; promiscuous; disorderly.
- n. A mêléc; a confused fight; disorder.
- To mix up promiscuously; pile in confused heaps.
Wiktionary
- adj. Hasty, uncontrolled.
- adv. In haste, uncontrolledly.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. See pall-mall.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. with undue hurry and confusion
- adv. in a wild or reckless manner
Etymologies
- French pêle-mêle This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology. (Wiktionary)
- French pêle-mêle, from Old French pesle mesle, probably reduplication of mesle, imperative of mesler, to mix; see meddle. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I ran pell-mell down the bleachers, forgetting about my supposedly sprained ankle, and grabbed the nearest fan.”
“The shortfall is widely blamed on the pell-mell panic inside MF Global to keep the securities firm alive long enough to arrange a sale.”
“The chaotic retreat illustrated the often pell-mell nature of rebel operations, in which laborers and teachers with little training are left to find rides to the front in private vehicles.”
“Anyway, the BIG story here is that one honest woman was able to do what pack of university trustees and fellows and so on couldn't or wouldn't do: stop ND's pell-mell pursuit of cozy relations with the politically correct even when it means honoring abortionism's standard bearer.”
Former Laetare Medalist to deliver address at Notre Dame's commencement
“She offered nothing that Sophia had been brought up to consider as love-worthy or estimable, for what good qualities she had must be accepted with their opposites, in an inconsequential pell-mell of wheat and tares.”
"One could love her for the only sufficient reason that one chose to."
“Nobody scored more than the Bulgarian's 20 league goals last season, and his finishing is hallmarked by the composure that would surely have brought order to Saturday's pell-mell chaos.”
The Guardian: Manchester United lose killer instinct while Dimitar Berbatov waits
“This was little more than a large house overstuffed with prize pieces salvaged during the pell-mell escape from the capital.”
“Yet the acting is mechanistic too, the comic timing is off by a country kilometer and the action drags dismayingly between a succession of kinetic set pieces and pell-mell chases.”
“He was a devout Keynesian whose term as prime minister went pell-mell for growth then toppled over the brink of bust after boom.”
The Guardian: Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan by DR Thorpe – review
“It is doubtful many women will identify with Kate and her pell-mell rush through life.”
The Huffington Post: Jackie K. Cooper: I Don't Know How She Does It Evokes a "Don't Care" Response
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pell-mell’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Reduples
Go for it, brothers and sisters! I personally have been suffering long for lack of an open reduplicatives list
happy clappy, bribble-brabble, diddle-daddle, hugger-mugger, kikiriki, Bora-Bora, mahi-mahi, jingle-jangle, knick-knack paddy..., chit-chat, bon-bon, clapperclaw and 292 more...
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Confusually
???????????????????
baffle, farrago, confound, befuddle, daze, disorient, discombobulate, stupefy, perplex, mystify, bewilder, boggle and 134 more...
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My Little Phonies
Names for the next generation of My Little Ponies. Inspired by Star's list.
juggernaught, flamboyant, cuddly maggot, astrobleme, agroof, windburn, poshlost, crucifer, feedbag, dunderwhelp, nebelwerfer, bliss ninny and 453 more...
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Situation Normal
inspired by Mistakes Were Made. Words for things going wrong in a manner particularly violent, stupid, soul-crushing, boggling, grandiose, or any combination of these qualities.
fuckup, snafu, fiasco, abortion, miscarriage, implosion, contretemps, imbroglio, brouhaha, melee, kerfuffle, mayhem and 156 more...
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Things Foxes Do
Behaviors you might expect from a character in Fantastic Mr Fox.
abscond, outwit, fox, ransack, turn tables, dig, sneak, vixens, baffle, tatterdemalion, aboiement, sneckdraw and 1 more...
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•Public List: Pommelions and Papermills
Started on pommelion--a place for all those words that feature P, then M, then L inside them. Somewhere.
pommelion, papermill, pimple, pemoline, pall mall, pell-mell, peppermill, paleomammalogy, philomelian, pummel, pimpernel, pimpmobile and 32 more...
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generationnext's Words
petulant, vehement, pensive, lascivious, vacillate, histrionic, satiated, svelte, lithe, zeitgeist, viscous, sommelier and 526 more...
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thekatespanos's list
pomposity, gaggle, scintilla, lemming, bilk, vanquish, conflate, plenary, verisimilitude, perspicacious, rattletrap, obdurate and 325 more...
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BonMots
assiduous, progeny, hegemony, nascent, reticent, ephemera, zeitgeist, recalcitrant, copious, corporeal, cacaphonous, obstreperous and 108 more...
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Words grabbed from real life conversa...
If I've seen it, heard it, or marvelled at it, I'll stick it here.
cruft, ermine, redundant, shakespearean, camino, marvelous, stupendous, chagrin, shaven, sleek, smug, stillness and 325 more...
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word list!!!!
lagniappe
syzygy, bloviate, lagniappe, laconic, condign, umbrage, susurrus, thaumaturgy, capacious, capitulate, glower, repast and 179 more...
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Stumbled Words
A list of words that I stumbled upon while reading.
penumbra, prolix, propitious, resplendence, sepulchral, Weltschmerz, apparition, brigand, probity, chalice, paroxysm, pallor and 160 more...
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Double Trouble
Reduplicatives and more.
splish-splash, hip-hop, kit-kat, dingaling, hugger-mugger, even-steven, tit for tat, higgledy-piggledy, dilly-dally, boogie-woogie, knick-knack, mai tai and 131 more...
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GRE
acrimony, verisimilitude, tenebrious, tenebrous, dishabille, unfettered, deplorable, woebegone, credulity, naïveté, mitigate, meliorate and 475 more...
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my words
interminable, effete, convocation, philistines, malaise, foibles, deputation, anathematized, morass, stalwart, proselytize, abet and 405 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pell-mell.

yarb "The rooks were tumbling pell-mell among the violet clouds of autumn."
- Orlando, Virginia Woolf Feb 7, 2008