Crossword clues for melange
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1650s, from French mélange (15c.), from mêler "to mix, mingle," from Old French mesler (see meddle).
Wiktionary
n. 1 A collection containing a variety of miscellaneous things 2 A Viennese coffee speciality, half steamed milk and half coffee.
WordNet
n. a motley assortment of things [syn: odds and ends, oddments, farrago, ragbag, hodgepodge, mishmash, mingle-mangle, hotchpotch, omnium-gatherum]
Wikipedia
Melange ( or ), often referred to as simply "the spice", is the name of the fictional drug central to the Dune series of science fiction novels by Frank Herbert, and derivative works.
In the series, the most essential and valuable commodity in the universe is melange, a drug that gives the user a longer life span, greater vitality, and heightened awareness; it can also unlock prescience in some humans, depending upon the dosage and the consumer's physiology. This prescience-enhancing property makes safe and accurate interstellar travel possible. Melange comes with a steep price, however: it is addictive, and withdrawal is fatal.
Carol Hart analyzes the concept in the essay "Melange" in The Science of Dune (2008). According to Paul Stamets, Herbert's creation of the drug was related in part to his own personal experiences with psilocybin mushrooms.
In geology, a mélange is a large-scale breccia, a mappable body of rock characterized by a lack of continuous bedding and the inclusion of fragments of rock of all sizes, contained in a fine-grained deformed matrix. The mélange typically consists of a jumble of large blocks of varied lithologies. Large-scale melanges formed in active continental margin settings generally consist of altered oceanic crustal material and blocks of continental slope sediments in a sheared mudstone matrix. The mixing mechanisms in such settings may include tectonic shearing forces, ductile flow of a water-charged or deformable matrix (such as serpentinite), sedimentary action (such as slumping, gravity-flow, and olistostromal action), or some combination of these. Some larger blocks of rock may be as much as across. Smaller-scale localized mélanges may also occur in shear or fault zones, where coherent rock has been disrupted and mixed by shearing forces.
Examples include the Franciscan Formation along the Coast Ranges of central and northern California and the Bay of Islands ophiolite complex in Newfoundland. The Gwna Mélange in the UK extends through Anglesey and the Llŷn Peninsula onto Bardsey Island in North Wales. The Northern Palawan melange distributed in , west coast of Inabamalaki Island, west coast of ; Cudugman Point on Bacuit Bay, in the islands of the Cuyo Group of Islands. It consists of a jumble of various rock types contained in a matrix of grey-green slaty mudstone and siltstone.
Before the advent of plate tectonics in the early 1970s, it was difficult to explain mélanges in terms of known geological mechanisms. A particularly troubling paradox was the occurrence of blueschist blocks (low temperature and high pressure metamorphic rocks) in direct contact with graywacke (a coarse sandstone with lithic fragments) that was deposited in a sedimentary environment. Mélange occurrences are associated with thrust faulted terranes in orogenic belts. A mélange is formed in the accretionary wedge above a subduction zone. The ultramafic ophiolite sequences which have been obducted onto continental crust are typically underlain by a mélange. Both tectonic and sedimentary processes can form mélange. Olistostromes are mélanges formed by gravitational sliding under water, with accumulation of the flow as a semi fluid body without bedding planes.
Melange comes from the French meaning of a "mixture" or "medley". It may also refer to:
- Melange (fictional drug) in Frank Herbert's Dune series novels
- Mélange, a geological breccia above a subduction zone environment
- Wiener Melange ("Viennese blend") a specialty coffee, similar to cappuccino
Usage examples of "melange".
In addition to the coxcomb, therefore, the Fool wears a costume of rough varicolored wool, so that he is a melange of patched colors.
Zensunni fanatics like Naib Dhartha, the income from melange was substantial.
The air of the place was a marvelous melange of the smell of old but clean clothes, cleaning-fluid, phantom scents, patchouli potpourri, joss-sticks permanently burning, and the occasional cigarette surreptitiously smoked by the girl at the till.
Through his access to Rossak pharmaceuticals, Arrakis melange, and glowglobe and suspensor products invented by dear Norma, he had leveraged his advantages as much as possible, which pleased him immensely.
Some were science fiction, others fantasy, and still others straight weirdies, but one and all they were the most insane melange of cockeyed humor the fantasy magazines had ever seen.
The trade in melange had increased exponentially as its use spread throughout the League, and each spice run practically paid the entire cost of one of the spacefolder cargo ships.
In place of the Yang Diamond sat a polyglot, polyfunctional melange of industries, the Hong Kong of the 26th century.
Pavement deicing equipment had kicked in, adding clouds of steam to the atmospheric melange.
Jesse thought of their hardships, feeling guilt because finally his teams were hauling in huge melange harvests, yet he had to pretend to be poor.
He moved as much melange and pharmaceuticals as he could, set up partnerships to stockpile nonperishable goods, and sheltered his income so that VenKee Enterprises could survive the impending loss of the shipyards.
She danced through an eclectic melange of sound that comfortably encompassed Offenbach and Elton John.
This potpourri of grease and onion and cheese and charbroiled meat had already flooded the room with a delicious melange of aromas.
Spies were ev'rywhere, some working for this redoubtable Lady, with her Jansenists and Philosopher, others for Parties whose Fortunes would have intermesh'd more and less naturally with those of any Flying Automaton, the Jesuits, of course, the British, the Prussian Military, along with Detectives upon missions Bourbon and Orleanist, Corsican Adventurers, Martinist Illuminati, a Grand Melange of Motive As no one was what he, and, for the most part delightfully, she, claim'd, no one told or expected the truth.
The desert and the jackals of Jacurutu with their overdoses of melange and their constant betrayals.
But when Calhoun switched on the outside microphones a faint, sweet melange of high-pitched chirpings came from tiny creatures hidden under the vegetation of the mountainsides.