Also 8–9 farago. [a. L. farrāgo mixed fodder for cattle, hence fig. a medley, confused mixture, f. farr-, far spelt, corn.] A confused group; a medley, mixture, hotchpotch.
† a. of material things or of persons. Obs.
1632. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, I. vii.
| Pra. Hee is one | |
| That over-rules tho’, by his authority | |
| Of living there; and cares for no man else: | |
| Neglects the sacred letter of the Law; | |
| And holds it all to be but a dead heape, | |
| Of civill institutions: the rest only | |
| Of common men, and their causes, a farragoe, | |
| Or a made dish in Court; a thing of nothing. |
1677. Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, II. iii. 149. The People were a Farrago, collected and gathered out of the neighbouring Nations.
1789. G. White, Selborne (1853), II. xxx. 245. Among this farrago also were to be seen some maggots.
b. Of immaterial things.
1637–50. Row, The History of the Kirk of Scotland (1842), 371–2. If this man had left in legacie a Confession of his faith, ye would have seen a strange miscellanie, farrago, and hotch-potch of Poperie, Arminianisme, Lutherianisme, and what not.
1783. Pott, Chirurg., Wks. II. 7. Ancient surgery was loaded with a farrago of external applications.
a. 1827. Canning, Poet. Wks., The Grand Consultation (1827), 41.
| Where are all the great doctors? No longer we want | |
| This farrago of cowardice, cunning, and cant. |
1876. C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond., 120. It was a farrago of the Lord’s Prayer, the Litany of the Church of England, and the extemporaneous effusion of Dr. Cumming himself.
