motley crew

English

Etymology

From motley + crew. Originally used to refer to the crews of 17th- and 18th-century ships, which contained men of many different nationalities.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌmɒtli ˈkɹuː/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌmɑtli ˈkɹu/
• Rhymes: -uː
• Hyphenation: mot‧ley crew

Noun

motley crew (plural motley crews)

1. A group of people of mixed background, especially one with a common goal.
   • 1830, John Carne, “Arab Chief—Syrian Physician—Adventures of a London Merchant”, in Recollections of Travels in the East; , London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, , →OCLC, page 100:

     Away they marched from the rocky region and miserable village where they were posted, a motley crew of Christians and Infidels, Catholics, Greeks, and adorers of the Prophet, all mingled together, to go and attack the holy city, and compel the governor to come to their terms, and supply them with provisions.

   • 1858, Dan King, “Indian Medicine”, in Quackery Unmasked: Or A Consideration of the Most Prominent Empirical Schemes of the Present Time, , Boston, Mass.: David Clapp, →OCLC, page 223:

     The honest Indian scorns all these schemes, and is never found among the motley crew of Indian doctors. It is made up not of genuine Indians, but of negroes, mulattoes, and, meanest of all, some white men, who have stolen the Indian livery for their own unhallowed purposes.

   • 1893 June, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Green Flag”, in The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport (Bell’s Indian and Colonial Library), London, Bombay, Maharashtra: George Bell & Sons, published 1900, →OCLC, page 8:

     Along the edge of this position lay the Arab host, a motley crew of shock-headed desert clansmen, fierce predatory slave-dealers of the interior, and wild dervishes from the Upper Nile, all blent together by their common fearlessness and fanaticism.

   • 1894, Arthur Clark Kennedy, “She Walked through Fire”, in Erotica, London: Gay and Bird, →OCLC, page 45:

     Spotless amid a motley crew / She passed the fiery ordeal through / Unhurt, begirt as with a fence / Of innocence.

   • 1906, Allen Chapman, “Ralph of the Roundhouse: Or Bound to Become a Railroad Man. Chapter XIX: Ike Slump’s Friends”, in Ralph on the Railroad: , New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, published , →OCLC, page 163:

     No one responded to the offer. A little dirty-faced urchin, who looked unhappy and out of place with that motley crew, looked longingly at Ralph. […] "Hold on, mister, back up—I want to tell you something!"

   • 2022 August 5, Bernd Debusmann Jr., “Obituary: Gary Schroen, the CIA spy sent to get Osama Bin Laden”, in BBC News‎, archived from the original on 2023-03-15:

     Within days, [Gary] Schroen and a motley crew of paramilitary officers became the first Americans on the ground in Afghanistan, armed with little more than satellite phones – but also millions of dollars in cash to curry favour with potential allies.

Translations

See also

• melting pot
• Mötley Crüe

References

Further reading

• “motley crew, n.”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.