Word.ws English Dictionary

pell-mell

/ˈpɛlˈmɛl/

pell-mell adjective: hasty and uncontrolled. Also the alternative form of pall mall.

Adjective

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

  1. Hasty and uncontrolled.
    • Nor moody Beggars, ſtaruing for a time / Of pell-mell hauocke, and confusion.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • 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.1883, Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, volume 4, page 204

Adverb

pell-mell (not comparable)

  1. In haste and chaos; uncontrolledly, confusedly.
    • But ſeeing that there the murdring Enemie, / Peſle-meſle, purſued them like a ſtorme of hayle, / They gan retyre vvhere Iuba vvas encampt; […][1594, Robert Garnier, translated by Thomas Kid [i.e., Thomas Kyd], Pompey the Great, His Faire Corneliaes Tragedie: […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Nicholas Ling, published 1595, →OCLC, act V
    • Never was there a great battle fought more pell-mell, since war began; never was valor so completely thrown away.1861, George Wilkes, The Great Battle, page 27

Also used as

pell-mell is also the alternative form of pall mall.

Examples of pell-mell in a sentence

  • The whole district presents the most pell-mell throwing together imaginable.1924, Konrad Bercovici, Around the World in New York, page 134:
  • The cattle are less disciplined, more pell-mell, heavy-footed, their hooves stamping the ground to mud in several places.2003, Audrey Joan Whitson, Teaching Places, page 50:
  • China’s pell-mell, brisk urbanization has in some ways made the challenge harder to face.2021 July 26, Steven Lee Myers, Keith Bradsher, Chris Buckley, “As China Boomed, It Didn’t Take Climate Change Into Account. Now It Must.”...
  • The table was covered with a confusion of papers, books, pamphlets, all heaped upon one another pell-mell; […][1884], [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “‘The Breaker has come up before Them’”, in Ishmael: […], volume I, London: John and Robert Maxwell, […]...

Forms of pell-mell

comparativemore pell-mell
superlativemost pell-mell
alternative formpell mell
alternative formpellmell

Origin of pell-mell

From French pêle-mêle, from Old French pesle-mesle, apparently a rhyme based on the stem of mesler (“to mix, meddle”). Compare meddle, melee.

Questions about pell-mell

What does pell-mell mean?
Pell-mell means hasty and uncontrolled.
How do you use pell-mell in a sentence?
The whole district presents the most pell-mell throwing together imaginable.
What part of speech is pell-mell?
Pell-mell can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce pell-mell?
Pell-mell is pronounced /ˈpɛlˈmɛl/.

Words near pell-mell in the dictionary

  1. Pell numbers
  2. Pell's equation
  3. Pell's equations
  4. Pell-Fermat equation
  5. Pell-Fermat equations
  6. pell-mell
  7. Pella
  8. pellack
  9. pellacks
  10. pellage
  11. pellagra

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pell-mell (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.

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