medley [ME] A medley was originally a fight, and is the same word as melee [M16th], ‘a confused fight or scuffle’. The source is French, and goes back to Latin misculare ‘to mix’, the source of mix (see mash) and related to meddle [ME]. The mixing and mingling of combatants in hand-to-hand fighting led to medley having a variety of uses that involve a mixture of parts. It was applied to a collection of songs or tunes performed as a continuous piece in the 17th century, and the swimming event with each part involving a different stroke appeared in the 1900s.