Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The grouping together of various properties, that may have different origins or statuses, for the purpose of determining how best to accomplish an equal division of the aggregate, as in an intestate estate with several heirs or the settlement of a divorce in a community property state.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A mixture of various ingredients; a hodgepodge or hotchpotch.
- noun In law, the aggregating of shares or properties, actually or theoretically, in order to secure equality of division.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A mingled mass; a confused mixture; a stew of various ingredients; a hodgepodge.
- noun (Law) A blending of property for equality of division, as when lands given in frank-marriage to one daughter were, after the death of the ancestor, blended with the lands descending to her and to her sisters from the same ancestor, and then divided in equal portions among all the daughters. In modern usage, a mixing together, or throwing into a common mass or stock, of the estate left by a person deceased and the amounts advanced to any particular child or children, for the purpose of a more equal division, or of equalizing the shares of all the children; the property advanced being accounted for at its value when given.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun law The
blending together ofproperty so as to achieve equaldivision , especially in the case ofdivorce orintestacy
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Littleton, the first great writer on English real property-law, traces the origin of the phrase 'hotchpot' -- a familiar legal term -- to the archaic denomination of a pudding, in our English tongue.
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 Various 1841
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He maintained with great vehemence that there was "no authority to throw the rights and liberties of this people into 'hotchpot' with the wild men of the Missouri, nor with the mixed, though more respectable, race of Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Americans who bask on the sands in the mouth of the Mississippi."
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860 James Gillespie Blaine 1861
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This root is much used among the Dutch people in a kind of loblolly or hotchpot, which they do eat, calling it _warmus_.
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie
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English masterpieces of immaculate and moderately good prose extracts and dramatic passages, published with notes for the use of the native student, at weltering in a hotchpot and hurley-burley of arbitrarily distorted and very vulgarised cockneydoms and purely London provincialities, which must be of necessity to him as casting pearls before a swine!
Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. F. Anstey 1895
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The mounds were outwardly of turf, but under a thin skin of this was a thick continuous wall of molten stone, granite, gneiss, and sandstone, bubbling together in a hotchpot!
My Life as an Author Tupper, Martin F 1886
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However, after compliments, and more protestations from its owner, the Strad was brought into hotchpot, and Lætitia abdicated.
Somehow Good William Frend De Morgan 1878
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Satire first signified a basket of first fruits offered to Ceres; then a hotchpot or olla podrida, then a medley; and so the name was given to poems written without any definite design.
History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange 1873
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Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot
Probabilities : An aid to Faith Martin Farquhar Tupper 1849
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Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot
The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper Martin Farquhar Tupper 1849
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'It seemeth,' he says, 'that this word, hotchpot, is in English a pudding; for in this pudding is not commonly put one thing alone, and
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 Various 1841
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