the exhibit was a hodgepodge of mediocre art, bad art, and really bad art
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What’s left is a hodgepodge of youngsters that could soon be stars and older players who have yet to win titles on the sport’s biggest stages.—Eben Novy-Williams, Sportico.com, 1 June 2026 And this intense vetting makes for a hodgepodge of talent from all walks of life.—Nate Freeman, Vanity Fair, 19 May 2026 His account racked up scores of bids totaling tens of thousands of dollars for a hodgepodge of items.—Bloomberg, Mercury News, 7 May 2026 Even so, many on Wall Street saw eBay as a tired company, with a clunky site selling a garage-like hodgepodge of items.—Phil Wahba, Fortune, 4 May 2026 See All Example Sentences for hodgepodge
an altered form of hotchpotch, from Middle English hochepot "mixed stew," derived from early French hochepot (same meaning), from hochier "to shake" and pot "pot, container"
Word Origin
Hodgepodge and its older form hotchpotch are part of a group of words that rhyme all by themselves. Hobnob and willy-nilly are others. In the case of hodgepodge and hotchpotch, the rhyme is not an accident. These words came to English from early French in the form hochepot. The spelling was changed to make the second half of the word rhyme with the first. In French hochepot was a stew of many foods cooked together in a pot. Perhaps the pot was shaken instead of stirred since hochepot was formed from hochier, meaning "to shake," and pot, which had the same meaning in early French as it does in English now. Before long hotchpotch and hodgepodge were used not just for a mixture of foods cooking in a pot but for any mixture of different things.