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say it: MAHT-lee
motley is a noun, verb and adjective meaning "a collection containing a variety of sorts of things". It carries 7 recorded senses.
a collection containing a variety of sorts of things
“a great assortment of cars was on display”
“he had a variety of disorders”
“a veritable smorgasbord of religions”
a garment made of motley (especially a court jester's costume)
a multicolored woolen fabric woven of mixed threads in 14th to 17th century England
make motley; color with different colors
consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds
“an arrangement of assorted spring flowers”
“assorted sizes”
“miscellaneous accessories”
“a mixed program of baroque and contemporary music”
“a motley crew”
“sundry sciences commonly known as social”
having sections or patches colored differently and usually brightly
“a jester dressed in motley”
“the painted desert”
“a particolored dress”
“a piebald horse”
“pied daisies”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for motley come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.