chance-medley

See also: chancemedley

English

Alternative forms

chancemedley

Etymology

From Old French chance medlée, literally "mingled chance", with postpositive adjective (often confused because of the fact that medley is also a noun).

Noun

chance-medley (countable and uncountable, plural chance-medleys)

(law, historical) The killing of another in self-defence upon a sudden and unpremeditated encounter.
- 1618, Michael Dalton, chapter CXLVI, in The Country Justice, Savoy: Henry Lintot, published 1746, page 333:
  Manſlaughter, otherwiſe called Chancemedley, is when two do fight together upon the ſudden, and by meer Chance, without any Malice precedent, and one of them doth kill the other; this alſo is Felony of Death.
(obsolete) Luck; chance; accident.
- 1645, John Milton, Tetrachordon:
  This is true in the general right of marriage, but not in the chance-medley of every particular match.
- 1784, William Cowper, Tirocinium; Or, A Review of Schools:
  Though much depends on what thy choice shall be, / Is all chance-medley, and unknown to me.

Synonyms

(killing): manslaught, manslaughter
(luck): fortune, hap; see also Thesaurus:luck

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “chance-medley”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)