jumble
conglomeration
farrago
hodgepodge
medley
melange
mess
mishmash
muddle
olio
olla podrida potpourri
Referee and umpire may both mean arbitrator, but the two words are more likely to be used in special contexts. Many sports are presided over by official judges who are appointed to enforce the rules of the game or contest and to settle disputed points. In baseball, tennis, and cricket, such an official is called an umpire ; in boxing, ice hockey, and basketball he is called a referee. The rules of American football call for the presence of both an umpire and a referee. Outside of the world of sports, umpire and referee have further meanings. Referee is applied technically to a lawyer to whom a pending legal case is referred, by means of a court order, for additional investigation and report. Although an arbitrator, a legal referee is usually appointed without the consent of the parties involved. In an important or complicated controversy, an umpire may be appointed to make a final decision in a case in which there is disagreement or a stalemate between the arbitrators. See lawyer.
These words are alike in referring to a disordered condition or to a confused or heterogeneous mixture of elements. Jumble and muddle both suggest conditions of extreme disorderliness resulting in confusion. Jumble suggests physical disorderliness, a lack of neatness, and brings to mind objects strewn about carelessly: The room was a jumble of books, papers, and beer cans. Muddle suggests the lack of clear or coherent organization, and commonly refers to mental or intellectual disorder — confused thinking. [The club records were in a complete muddle — no one even knew how much money was in the treasury; Income tax returns always put him in a muddle, in a drunken muddle of misdirected antagonism.]
Conglomeration and melange refer to heterogeneous collections of things. Both words often carry critical overtones, suggesting that the collection is random or inapposite: a curious conglomeration of witticisms, quotations, word games, and other linguistic legerdemain, entertaining enough but lacking any overall plan of organization. Melange more vigorously suggests inaptness or incongruity, and is sometimes used derisively or contemptuously: a melange of beatniks, middle-class matrons, and Madison Avenue executives. Medley and farrago both refer to confused mixtures or masses of elements. Medley emphasizes the variegated, heterogeneous nature of the elements that compose it, whereas farrago emphasizes the irrational or confused juxtaposition of those elements. A medley is necessarily various, but not necessarily composed of inharmonious or clashing elements: a medley of flavors. Farrago strikes a balance somewhere between conglomeration and mess: a farrago of outmoded ideas and half-understood theories.
Mess is the most general word of this set as well as one of the strongest. In the sense here considered it means a hopeless jumble of elements resulting in a state of confusion, or the confused state itself. It may refer either to physical disorder (After the ticker tape parade ended, the street was a mess), sloppiness or slovenliness (The manuscript was a mess, full of inkblots, erasures, and deletions), or to any thoroughly disorganized condition (He’s made a mess of his life).
Hodgepodge (or, as it is sometimes spelled and pronounced, hotchpotch), potpourri, and olla podrida all refer in one sense to stews having a variety of ingredients. All also commonly refer to any miscellaneous collection of elements. Hodgepodge, as well as the stronger term mishmash, emphasize disorganization; they are the figurative analogues to an actual jumble of objects. [The musical comedy was a hodgepodge of sentimental cliche, coy sexuality, and jingoistic claptrap.] Hodgepodge bespeaks a lack of intelligent guidance or rational coherence.
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Mishmash, the most directly contemptuous word of this group, is often used to suggest a badly mismanaged or botched undertaking, resulting in confusion and chaos: His heralded new political program turned out to be nothing more than the usual mishmash of stale slogans, unrealistic promises, and insincere flattery. Potpourri, as here considered, points to the lack of uniformity or similarity of elements, and may imply a lack of discrimination or restraint as well: The movie was a potpourri of slapstick, melodrama, and bowdlerized history, in spite of which it still managed to include some genuinely funny moments. Olla podrida, borrowed from the Spanish, and olio, derived from olla, suggest a miscellaneous collection or medley of elements: an olio of political sentiment, ranging from the radical to the reactionary. See disparate, heterogeneous.
These words refer to the ability or right to rule. Jurisdiction is the most formal of these words and the most restricted in application. It indicates an officially or legally predetermined division of a larger whole, a division within which someone or something has the right to rule or decide: Surrogate court has sole jurisdiction over the execution of wills; an election in which workers were to determine what union should have jurisdiction to represent them; the three-nation commission that was given jurisdiction to govern the internationalized city. Sovereignty approaches jurisdiction in formality, but it stresses absolute or autonomous rule over something considered as a whole. In this case, the official right to rule is not stressed so much as the fact of actual ruling, however this has come about: British mercantile interests that acquired sovereignty over the scattering of emirates adjacent to the port; nations traditionally suspicious of surrendering the slightest token of sovereignty to any supranational governing body; American revolutionists who rejected England’s claim of sovereignty over the colonies.
Dominion is less clear-cut in its implications. It can refer, on one hand, to assigned partial rule, like jurisdiction : a constitutional provision that gave the states dominion over intrastate commerce. On the other hand, it can refer like sovereignty to absolute control, although here it often refers strictly to the control of a superior over an inferior: the inescapable dominion of the rich and educated over the poor and unschooled. As an actual title for a territory, the word can suggest a colony that has gained internal self-rule but whose external affairs still come under the sovereignty of the colonizer: a colony that advanced to the status of a dominion and finally of a full-fledged republic. Sway can now sound old-fashioned; traditionally it has referred to a sphere in which something has absolute control: the succession of European nations that held sway over various portions of Africa; Aristotle held undisputed sway over the thinking of many medieval philosophers. As in the last example, the word is in danger of being taken in the sense of mere influence rather than absolute control; this possibility occurs because of an unrelated meaning of sway : a demagogue able to sway mass audiences to his point of view.
Authority and Power are less formal than the other words here and are much more general in application. Power refers to any exercising of control over something, often with a stress on forcefulness or strength: The monarchy won universal recognition of its sovereignty only after the period of its greatest power had begun to fade. Often, the word refers simply to the ability to choose, understand, or control: Only man of all the animals has the power to reason. A related use reveals the word at
jurisdiction
authority
dominion
power
sovereignty
sway
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