adv. (old: now recognised).—In confusion; ‘higgledy-piggledy.’—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785). Also as subs. and verb.
1591. W. GARRARD, The Art of Warre, 299. That either they may enter PESLE MESLE, or kill some Chiestana, or make such a slaughter of Soldiours.
1663. BUTLER, Hudibras, I. 3. To come PELL-MELL to handy blows.
1664. COTTON, Scarronides, or Virgile Travestie (1st ed.), 109.
| Down went their Cups, and to’t they fell, | |
| Roaring and Swaggering PELL-MELL. |
c. 1709. The Female Scuffle [D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy (1709), iv. 18].
| Both PELL-MELL fell to’t, and made this uproar, | |
| With these Compliments, th’art a Baud, th’art a Whore. |
b. 1733. R. NORTH, Examen (1740), I. iii. 48, 151. He falls in PESLE-MESLE.
1764. TAVERNIER, Travels, II. 16. They fought hand to hand with their sables, PESLE MESLE.
1767. STERNE, Tristram Shandy [Works (1839), IX. xxvi. 386]. To attack the point of the advancing counterscarp, and PÊLE MÊLE with the Dutch to take the counterguard.
1837. COOPER, Recollections of Europe, II. 188. The revolution has made a PÊLE MÊLE in the salons of Paris.
1850. BULWER-LYTTON, Harold, VII. iii. For some minutes the PELE MELE was confused and indistinct.
1865. OUIDA, Strathmore, I. iii. They fell PELE MELE one on another.
1892. FENNELL, Stanford Dictionary, s.v. PELE-MELE … The form PESLE MESLE is earlier Fr. (COTGRAVE). Early Anglicised as PELLE(Y) MELLE(Y).
