Both Uses of
motley
in
Gone with the Wind
- Scarlett, though filled with the universal Southern desire to believe only the pleasantest and most reassuring things about the progress of the fighting, felt cold as she watched the motley ranks go by.†
Chpt 3.18 *
- The set with which she was now moving was a motley crew.†
Chpt 5.49
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.