Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pall-mall \Pall`-mall"\, n. [OF. palemail, It. pallamagio; palla
a ball (of German origin, akin to E. ball) + magio hammer,
fr. L. malleus. See 1st Ball, and Mall a beetle.]
A game formerly common in England, in which a wooden ball was
driven with a mallet through an elevated hoop or ring of
iron. The name was also given to the mallet used, to the
place where the game was played, and to the street, in
London, still called Pall Mall. [Written also pail-mail and
pell-mell.]
--Sir K. Digby.
--Evelyn.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"confusedly," 1570s, from Middle French pêle-mêle, from Old French pesle mesle (12c.), apparently a jingling rhyme on the second element, which is from the stem of the verb mesler "to mix, mingle" (see meddle). Phonetic French form pelly melly is attested in English from mid-15c.
Wiktionary
a. hasty, uncontrolled. adv. In haste, uncontrolledly, confusedly. alt. hasty, uncontrolled.
WordNet
adj. with undue hurry and confusion; "a helter-skelter kind of existence with never a pause"; "a pell-mell dash for the train" [syn: helter-skelter]
adv. in a wild or reckless manner; "dashing harum-scarum all over the place"; "running pell-mell up the stairs" [syn: harum-scarum]
Usage examples of "pell-mell".
The headlights played on dark shapes, and suddenly Lotsa Smoke was racing through the herd, the buffaloes rushing pell-mell to escape-calves and cows and even old bulls.
A great piece of waste ground, on which pell-mell, amid a mass of sand and stones, were a few break-wheels, already rusty, surrounded by a quadrangular building pierced by a number of little windows.
The crowd had started to break up at the fringes as people ran pell-mell down side streets, trying to keep the intrepid balloonist in sight.
I spying his intendment, discharged my petronel in his bosom, and with this instrument, my poor rapier, ran violently upon the Moors that guarded the ordnance, and put them pell-mell to the sword.
More samurai were drawn away from the hedge immediately in front of Saigo and just before the samurai overwhelmed the two fighters, in a coordinated maneuver the two shishi broke off the battle and pretended to flee pell-mell for the fence near the kitchens, well away from Saigo and the three final teams.
With plenty of fuel, with only one carrier to attack, he could indulge in drilled doctrine, Warren thought, instead of making the pell-mell dives of the morning strike.
We stream down pell-mell over the lawn and terraces, over the nodding treasuries of roses and the high stands of pink gladiolas in the flower beds.
In the middle of the room, pell-mell, were scattered drawers, bottles, curtain-rods, gilt poles, with mattresses on the chairs and basins on the ground--the two men who had brought the furniture had left everything about carelessly.
Not wasting a moment with their boots, the companions dashed around the building in their stocking feet and raced straight for the bikes pell-mell.
No description could have matched the sensation of being carried pell-mell amid treetops by the scampering inverted fury of a dolmusq, with its eighteen tentacles snatching at whatever support was offered and its body straining under the weight of two-score passengers.
Soon a confused sound was heard of bellowing and neighing and bleating, and about a mile to the south immense flocks appeared, rushing and tumbling over each other in the greatest disorder, as they hurried pell-mell along with inconceivable rapidity.
He displayed his erudition, cited pell-mell cantharides, upas, the manchineel, vipers.
The men rode after him in haste, and for a moment they went pell-mell down the chancy turn, over ground buried in leaves.
Aumun Tholant Bezrar screamed, waving his arms wildly as he ran pell-mell through the forest, crashing into trees and saplings wherever the trail wandered and his frantic flight did not.
They were leaning in the archway to Boq's room, a pell-mell clot of them, backlit by the oil lamp in the study beyond.