Both Uses of
motley
in
Ulysses, by James Joyce
- But prompt ventilation of this allimportant question... Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of the canteen, over the motley slush.†
Chpt 2
- A ribald face, sullen as a dean's, Buck Mulligan came forward, then blithe in motley, towards the greeting of their smiles.†
Chpt 9 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(motley) consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds of a thing -- sometimes implying that the collection does not go well together and is of low quality
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely, motley can refer specifically to different colors.
Much more rarely (though commonly in classic literature) motley references a multicolored woolen fabric woven of mixed threads in 14th to 17th century England; or to a court jester's costume made of such fabric. This sense of the word is still reasonably common in the expression motley fool which refers to a jester in such garb.