pell-mell
/pɛlˈmɛl
/adverb
In a confused, rushed, or disorderly manner: they rushed pell-mell up the hill...
- Bernard embarked on pell-mell international expansion, building strong operations across the rest of Europe, Asia and Latin America.
- Behind the marked turnaround: pell-mell economic growth, an ultra-easy monetary policy, and a bank lending boom.
- Even groups that we have admired are now in pell-mell cowardly retreat.
Synonyms
helter-skelter, headlong, (at) full tilt, hotfoot, post-haste, hurriedly, hastily;
wildly, impetuously, recklessly, rashly, precipitately, impulsively
informal slap bang
archaic hurry-scurry
in disorder, in confusion, in a muddle/jumble, in disarray, in a disorganized manner, untidily, in a mess, in a heap, anyhow
informal all over the place, every which way
British informal all over the shop, shambolically
North American informal all over the map, all over the lot
adjective
Hasty or disorganized: steps to slow the pell-mell pace of deforestation...
- Unrelenting tosh, it mixes dodgy accents with over-ripe dialogue, hammy performances and the kind of pell-mell pace that leaves little room for subtlety or reflection.
- What's been largely missing, though, through these pell-mell days, has been the time to rethink pat agendas rather than fit the facts around them - or the imagination to give the suckers on all sides an even break.
- Thus, for decades, corporations and individuals have bored deep into fossil water, which is not replenishable - a pell-mell water mining that has left what remains as brackish as the sea.
noun [in singular]
A disorderly situation or collection of things: the pell-mell of ascending gables and roof tiles...
- The clowns are delivering their aid in the most personal way, with not just a joke and a smile, but hugs and tears and the pell-mell of circus-like performances.
- Yet stealthily he has displayed a tactical nous in Europe even if the pell-mell of the Premiership, especially away from home, remains a mystery to his enigmatic and infuriating charges.
- It may be a pell-mell of words but feelings should make a piece worth reading.
Origin
Late 16th century: from French pêle-mêle, from earlier pesle mesle, mesle pesle, reduplication from mesler 'to mix'.
People like words that combine two almost identical forms, like helter-skelter (late 16th century), mishmash (Late Middle English), namby-pamby, and wishy-washy (late 17th century)—and pell-mell. Its second element represents a form of French mesler ‘to mix’ (related to medley). The first part might be from pelle ‘shovel’, giving the sense ‘mixed together with a shovel’, but the simple love of rhyme may be the only explanation needed.