motley crew
Syllables: mot·ley crew/ˌmɒtli ˈkɹuː/US/ˌmɑtli ˈkɹu/
motley crew noun: a group of people of mixed background, especially one with a common goal.
Noun
motley crew (plural motley crews)
- A group of people of mixed background, especially one with a common goal.
- Away they marched from the rocky region and miserable village where they were posted, a motley crew of Christians and Infidels, Catholics, Greeks, and adorers of the Prophet, all mingled together, to go and attack the holy city, and compel the governor to come to their terms, and supply them with...1830, John Carne, “Arab Chief—Syrian Physician—Adventures of a London Merchant”, in Recollections of Travels in the East; […], London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 100
- The honest Indian scorns all these schemes, and is never found among the motley crew of Indian doctors. It is made up not of genuine Indians, but of negroes, mulattoes, and, meanest of all, some white men, who have stolen the Indian livery for their own unhallowed purposes.1858, Dan King, “Indian Medicine”, in Quackery Unmasked: Or A Consideration of the Most Prominent Empirical Schemes of the Present Time, […], Boston, Mass.: […] David Clapp, →OCLC, page 223
Examples of motley crew in a sentence
- Spotless amid a motley crew / She passed the fiery ordeal through / Unhurt, begirt as with a fence / Of innocence.1894, Arthur Clark Kennedy, “She Walked through Fire”, in Erotica, London: Gay and Bird, →OCLC, page 45:
- A little dirty-faced urchin, who looked unhappy and out of place with that motley crew, looked longingly at Ralph. […] "Hold on, mister, back up—I want to tell you something!"1906, Allen Chapman, “Ralph of the Roundhouse: Or Bound to Become a Railroad Man. Chapter XIX: Ike Slump’s Friends”, in Ralph on the...
Forms of motley crew
| plural | motley crews |
|---|
Origin of motley crew
From motley + crew. Originally used to refer to the crews of 17th- and 18th-century ships, which contained men of many different nationalities.
Words that rhyme with motley crew
Questions about motley crew
- What does motley crew mean?
- Motley crew means a group of people of mixed background, especially one with a common goal.
- How do you use motley crew in a sentence?
- Spotless amid a motley crew / She passed the fiery ordeal through / Unhurt, begirt as with a fence / Of innocence.
- What part of speech is motley crew?
- Motley crew is a noun.
- How do you pronounce motley crew?
- Motley crew is pronounced /ˌmɒtli ˈkɹuː/ (UK).
- What is the plural of motley crew?
- The plural of motley crew is motley crews.
Words near motley crew in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: motley crew (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-motley crew.wav.
Cite this entry: “motley crew.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/motley_crew. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.