pell-mell

pell-mell
adverb

1
: in mingled confusion or disorder
papers strewn pell-mell on the desk
2
: in confused haste
ran pell-mell for the door
pell-mell adjective or noun



Did you know?
The word pell-mell was probably formed through a process called reduplication. The process—which involves the repetition of a word or part of a word, often including a slight change in its pronunciation—also generated such terms as bowwow, helter-skelter, flip-flop, and chitchat. Yet another product of reduplication is shilly-shally, which started out as a single-word compression of the question "Shall I?" For pell-mell, the process is believed to have occurred long ago: our word traces to a Middle French word of the same meaning, pelemele, which was likely a product of reduplication from Old French mesle, a form of mesler, meaning "to mix."


Synonyms
amok
amuck
berserk
berserkly
frantically
frenetically
frenziedly
harum-scarum
hectically
helter-skelter
madly
wild
wildly