How To Use Motley In A Sentence

The high tide of adaptationism floated a motley navy, but it may now be on the ebb. Adaptationism
Because Selma University was unaccredited, Spring Hill wanted Motley to enter as a freshman, which she found intolerable.
Chiefdoms are marked by a motley of villages dotted around them.
a scarlet "whittle" over all this motley finery; with a "outwork quoyf or ciffer" (New England French for coiffure) with "long wings" at the side, and a silk or tiffany hood on her drooping head, -- Priscilla in this attire were pretty indeed. Sabbath in Puritan New England
So it's great to find this marvellous motley crew still making records and still having something to say. The Sun

The motley collection of stables, houses, chandleries, and shanties near the waterfront had been drafted into service as warehouses. LAST CALL
But no, they all came in an anorak or windcheater and a untidy motley lot they were.
And it succeeds in treating this often delicate subject head-on but with the lightness of touch that you would expect from The Motley Fool.
When the complete brigade emerge in full drag from their dressing rooms, they look quite the motley crew.
Within the walls of the keep were a motley of low, stone buildings that housed the garrison, supplies, and mounts of the soldiers, engineers and tradesmen that made up the residents of the fortress.
Like his men, he wears a motley garb, -- part Spanish uniform, part costume of the Llanos; and he leans upon a lance, decorated with a black bannerol, which has carried death already to innumerable Loyalist hearts. The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859
A motley collection of ornaments jostled for space on the crowded shelf.
His friends were a motley crew.
The "No" campaign has been vigorous, comprising a motley crew of aging Marxists, anti-globalisation protesters, traditional Eurosceptics, and obsessive " sovereigntists ".
But that same night he raised from several sources a motley mound of coin: Spanish milled dollars, English crowns and shillings, a French half-crown. Robert Morris
Clad in red, yellow, and green motley, he smirks at us through his fingers in the traditional gesture of one who ‘looks the other way’ in the face of wrongdoing.
We are keen for our school to be a real motley crew, like our steering group. Times, Sunday Times
Already listed as having the worst weather in Canada, the motley collection of buildings stands alone and deserted. Times, Sunday Times
The people she invited were a pretty motley crew .
After another blast of the wretched conditions that have blighted this season's major championships, a motley crew of contenders have lined up at Hazeltine to exploit the uncertainty.
The town was snow-covered, too, and the frozen river, and wherever one went, the air was full of the gay jingle-jangle of countless sleighbells, while the streets were thronged with a motley collection of equipages, from the luxuriously upholstered double sleigh with its swaying robes and floating plumes, down to the shapeless home-made "pung" with its ragged, unlined buffalo skin snugly tucked in about the shawled and veiled grandma, who smilingly awaited her good man while he purchased the week's supply of groceries. Half a Dozen Girls
There's a motley assortment/collection of old furniture in the house we're renting at the moment.
In the _praeludium_ to Goffe's "Careless Shepherdess," 1656, quarto, there is a panegyric on them, and some concern is shown for the fool's absence in the play itself, while it is stated that "The motley coat was banished with trunk-hose. A History of Pantomime
Shame about the motley crew of wet experts flopping about in front of them. Times, Sunday Times
They made up the most motley of crews. Times, Sunday Times
All had several days' growth of beard and were dressed in a motley collection of civilian clothing.
On with the motley, in case you don ` t happen to have Italian.... A MEANS TO EVIL
Some 7,000 objects have been selected from a motley collection. Times, Sunday Times
Every time this folk singer sings in her guttural voice, she draws a motley audience around her courtyard.
Daniel researches his role as Christ, gathers a motley cast of veteran players, and mounts a daring and provocative re-telling of the Biblical tale that horrifies Le Clerc but becomes a smash hit in Quebec. John Farr: Getting Religion: The Ten Best Films on Faith
His pockets contained a motley collection of coins, movie ticket stubs, and old candies.
Rounding off this motley group, a talented ensemble of supporting players tackles the remaining characters - several apiece, in fact - with gusto and aplomb.
At the first shop Pam and I settle for a motley of 50s cutlery and kitchen tools.
Dozens of giant steel animals will be pulled through the streets by a motley crew of characters.
A motley crew we looked with our sweets and drink we brought in our selves but they loved it.
Soon the children see a motley crew arrive in assorted vehicles. GRAVE CONCERNS • by Oscar Windsor-Smith
He had evidently lived in varied cities and very motley societies, for some of his cheerfullest stories were about gambling hells and opium dens, Australian bushrangers or The Complete Father Brown
There's a motley assortment/collection of old furniture in the house we're renting at the moment.
On the one hand we have a motley crue of Railstone fanatics who attempt to get the tomb opened; on the other hand we have the guardians of the vault, local church members who are opposed to this very idea as well as councillors who are planning a new water reservoir at the very spot. WITCHFINDER: MARK OF THE BEAST by Brian Ball (Mayflower 1976)
A man and woman, at their heels a motley following of brats and curs, trailed disconsolately by. THE HOUSE OF MAPUHI
What a motley crew we are - much more so, I say from my experience, than journalists and politicians.
The collections of college and university art museums are sometimes motley assortments of works of art donated by alumni to their alma mater - uneven collections with glaring gaps.
Instead, I would wear ripped jeans, mousse up my hair and ‘air guitar’ to Poison, White-snake and Mötley Crüe videos.
His wildlife show is on the verge of being cancelled and his motley production crew about to lose their jobs. Times, Sunday Times
It's definitely a ‘local's local’, with a motley crew of characters young and old.
They are accompanied by a motley bunch of red-vented bulbuls and jungle babblers.
He is remarkable only for wearing his hair like a fool - literally looking like some doleful court jester in black and white motley with a fright-wig hairdo.
Motley Fool spokesman Chris Hill reports that the duck quacked but of course it didn't sound like it does on TV. Duck a la Fool: Star Aflac duck visits Motley Fool HQ
The generality wish for the return of harlequin, who though he cannot appear as he used to do, with his motley coat and wooden sword, often struts about in the hero's dress to delight them; at least it is only to this that I can ascribe the miserable pantomimes with which the tragic actors inter - sperse their tragedies. A General collection of the best and most interesting voyages and travels in all parts of the world [microform] : many of which are now first translated into English : digested on a new plan
But, when he was in the shallop, this examinate saw him in a motley gown at liberty, and they spoke together, Hudson saying: It is that villain Ivott [Juet], that hath undone us; and he answered: No, it is Grene that hath done all this villainy. Henry Hudson
Whatever pedestrian space was left would be jammed with a motley, jostling throng of buyers.
Reach the Gardners at fool@ fool. com, or by regular mail to Motley Fool, PO Box 19529, The News Tribune Blogs
Now the shadows were coming into focus; they were a motley rabble of creatures, ranging from otters to voles, stoats and squirrels, and even a few moles.
Beside Pharisaic Judaism as the stem proper there was a motley mass of formations which resulted from the contact of Judaism with foreign ideas, customs, and institutions (even with Babylonian and Persian), and which attained importance for the development of the predominant church as well as for the formation of the so-called gnostic Christian communions. History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7)
It's a sobering thought that you are the least popular of a motley crew. The Sun
Or whether it was a beacon of false hope lit by the unique electricity of a motley group with an idiosyncratic manager. Times, Sunday Times
They look raggle-taggle gypsy-ish, or motley fools. Still breathing
a motley crew
A motley company of about a dozen men they were, dressed in cheap trousers supported by "galluses," coarse shirts, and wide-brim straw hats. The Kentucky Ranger
Whether the generation of young business people, brought up on Yahoo Finance and Motley Fool, feel the same way about The Journal when they get to the boardroom is an open question. Murdoch Decides to Take WSJ.com’s Money Now - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
She snorted at the thought - if he truly had convinced himself that she was blind to his double-faced ways, he was more of a fool than those who wore motley and feathers and danced for ladies.
He had evidently lived in varied cities and very motley societies, for some of his cheerfullest stories were about gambling hells and opium dens, Australian bushrangers or Italian brigands. The Father Brown Omnibus
We're down from one hundred to a mere twenty-one, and a motley, ill-assorted collection they are, too.
We knew instinctively that we had overcome almost everything a brutal, racist country threw at us; and such a motley collection of low-life thugs had no right to feel superior to anyone.
They made up the most motley of crews. Times, Sunday Times
When the vehicle came to a stop at the first guard post, Kimberley Motley, an American defense lawyer who represents foreigners ensnarled in Afghanistan's legal system, lowered her window and flashed a smile. American former beauty queen defending foreigners stuck in Afghan legal system
My old Motley Crue t-shirt mysteriously, spontaneously, combusted. Corinne McDermott: What Is the Best Age to Visit Disney With Kids?
Shame about the motley crew of wet experts flopping about in front of them. Times, Sunday Times
But it is as well to point out, that the term double flowers indicates a motley assemblage of different phenomena. Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation
Motley Fool has an interesting analysis of American Greetings, the old-line greeting-card company that's making a valiant attempt at surviving the digital age.
Again, the motley views expressed over the past decade or so reflect different theoretical assumptions.
Guest 18: MK motley crue suck the only thing good about them is Tommys wife Mesocyclone Diary Entry
In contrast to this perception, Miller paints a more realistic portrait of a motley and often fractious group of militants.
He seems to still have a few friends around, if the motley crew taking up both sides of the stage are anything to go by.
As war loomed in August 1939, Joyce could easily have found himself interned on the Isle of Man, along with a motley crew of British fascists and enemy aliens.
For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed this — and rightly ascribed it — to the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked. Moby Dick; or the Whale
First, Chinese males became effeminate fops, who dressed in motley silk costumes and sported ridiculously long fingernails. The Romance of China: Excursions to China in U.S. Culture: 1776-1876
Like most resistance movements it combines a motley range of assorted factions.
The party is not a motley collection of ageing hippies, but an arm of a wealthy and complex organisation.
Spending time with these motley characters again is, inarguably, loads of fun.
We are keen for our school to be a real motley crew, like our steering group. Times, Sunday Times
I can be found amongst this motley crew, whenever I go to a conference or suchlike, I am always scanning the itinerary for suitable gaps in which I can seek an exit to have a quick nicotine ‘fix’.
Inside, a motley crew of gents are draped over by a mixture of girls in varied state of undress.
STEVEN'S GIRLFRIEND RAN INTO TOMMY Lee out on the town one night and Tommy invited her down to Cherokee Studios to hang out and watch Mötley record Theatre of Pain, the follow-up to their breakthrough album, Shout at the Devil. 'Slash'
A motley crew of hapless musicians and street performers are seen trying to cheer up citizens in what appears to be a breadline.
A motley collection of ornaments jostled for space on the crowded shelf.
A motley crew of wastrels, pikemen, surgeons, bowmen, duellists, and others, all who had been arrested for some supposed crime or other. Archive 2010-01-01
Despite many house moves, she had always made sure her large consignment of motley cardboard boxes went too.
In their places for the home side, a motley collection of untried young players and expensive misfits. Times, Sunday Times
Other acquisitions were a motley crowd from hospitals and carbon black to software and agrochemicals. India Invests Abroad
But Wagner's music casts a spell infinitely more seductive than those wielded by his motley collection of wizards and sorcerers.
The people she'd invited were a pretty motley crew.
England, at his return home he was adjudged to be the fool himself; but now wearied with the motley coxcombe, he hath undertaken in some place or other to find a verier foole than himself. The Book of Noodles Stories of Simpletons; or, Fools and Their Follies
She had a motley group of friends at college.
Assembling a motley crew of accomplices, their poorly conceived plans would be laughable were they not so deadly and, ultimately, tragic.
Others open a fist to show a motley handful of pebbles from white to green to brown. Times, Sunday Times
Left downstage was a motley gang of people - at least eleven. ADRIENNE AND THE CHALET SCHOOL
In the film, the young novice Viridiana does her utmost to maintain her Catholic principles, but her lecherous uncle and a motley assemblage of paupers force her to confront the limits of her idealism.
She had faith in a motley of astrologers and psychics, and it is perhaps a standing reproach that they failed to signal danger.
By any definition this is a derogatory term (rabble, riff-raff, shabby, motley, dishevelled, etc). Times, Sunday Times
The clerk looked from Ben to the parcels, as if debating momentarily with himself quite what he should do with the motley little collection of brown paper packages.
On second thought, maybe he is telling her he has a stomachache from the motley potley peanut butter cake? Stagiaire - French Word-A-Day
The heroes are a motley collection. Times, Sunday Times
I think, recalling a motley bunch of candidates in past U.S. elections, including former stars of the big screen and even muscle-bound athletes. élire - French Word-A-Day
We're down from one hundred to a mere twenty-one, and a motley, ill-assorted collection they are, too.
However, living in such close proximity to what has turned out to be a motley collection of misfits and malcontents has me rattled.
A motley collection of ornaments jostled for space on the crowded shelf.
exposure to private-label buyback requests because Bank of America has had only limited experience with a motley crew of litigious counterparties. Bank of America Eyes Mortgage Buybacks - TheStreet
I look at everyone and everything around me in the sea of motley colors vibrating in the room.
This massively influential music producer has spawned a whole motley of lesser soundalikes with his pioneering electronic sounds.
His jerkin and hose were of motley, the left arm and right leg being blue, their opposites, orange tawny, while the nether socks and shoes were in like manner black and scarlet counterchanged. The Armourer's Prentices
I looked at the motley bunch we were sailing with and began to feel uneasy about the trip.
I use the word motley in the sense of incongruous or nonsensical, as evidenced by the protest signs they were carrying. The Agonist - thoughtful, global, timely
This juncture also serves to introduce the motley crew under Dalton's command, each of whom seems to hide a somewhat checkered past.
Prithee, good Motley," he questioned, "what should bring so rare a Fool to lie in dungeon fettered and gyved along of innocent rogues and roguish robber? The Geste of Duke Jocelyn
The room was filled with a motley collection of furniture and paintings.
Who would prefer that Coleridge be Schelling?), but his career as a writer in motley genres and sundry places was enabled by his vacillation, his apostasies, the intractable irritability of his text. Site One: A Romantic Education.
This juncture also serves to introduce the motley crew under Dalton's command, each of whom seems to hide a somewhat checkered past.
Or that the quests of the motley participants were too disparate to find common ground.
Accompanied by five other friends, we were a motley group ourselves, due to the multiple nationalities represented, as well as the fact that half of us are vegetarians.
On another occasion he entitled his motley force the Sans The Winning of the West, Volume 4 Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807
The motley assortment of passengers take refuge in a roadside cafe, where they are soon cut off from the world by the storm and discover that there's a murderer in their midst.
The lads responded and a motley crew matured and developed into a squad to be proud of.
We are keen for our school to be a real motley crew, like our steering group. Times, Sunday Times
In this twisty take on the western, two upper-class Englishmen, sent to Montana to find their missing brother, pal up with a motley assortment of fellow travellers.
London shares were slightly lower in a week that saw The Motley Fool celebrate its seventh birthday.
They made up the most motley of crews. Times, Sunday Times
To the motley collection of recent books devoted to describing and assessing the prospects of the American imperium, this volume adds remarkably little.
The current administration has lasted the term somehow but its journey has been exhausting and the motley group of parties that make up the government seem to have lost their individual identities because of the Common Minimum Programme that had to be stitched together in order to make up the numbers required to rule. The Great Indian Tamasha
It's about an enterprising Dubliner who brings together a motley bunch to form a soul band. The Sun
He failed to win the nomination in 2008 and this time took a long time to see off a motley collection of rivals in the primaries. Times, Sunday Times
a jester dressed in motley
If I had that famous penny for every time the Motley Fool's written about the nonsense of broker recommendations, then I'd be able to stop punting on tech shares.
Mother desperately wanted me to associate with the popular girls - who wouldn't have given me the time of day except in Mother's presence - but tolerated my little motley assortment of eccentrics and outcasts.
There is a large-chain grocery store, the Big Y, some empty factory buildings, several old dark-brick school buildings, a five-and-dime, and a motley assortment of other drab storefronts. Red Flags or Red Herrings?
It cannot be denied that they usually have the matter discussed before them by an intelligent bar, but the manner of the discussion is more after the furious mode of the prize-fighters at a fair for victory, -- not truth, in which violent gesticulation and round and reckless assertion are alone to be found, than the calm, dispassionate ratiocinatory process of one who seeks, by fair argument and clear illustration to enlighten the minds of the motley court upon a subject lying before it, shrouded in the gloom of the profoundest ignorance. Eoneguski, or, the Cherokee Chief: A Tale of Past Wars. Vol. I.
That Hazlitt learned to express his thoughts “in motley imagery or quaint allusion”, that his understanding “ever found a language to express itself, I owe to Coleridge”, he later wrote. March « 2009 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground
The camera weaves its way through a motley crew of punk and ‘new wave’ types as they carouse, brawl, and struggle to assert themselves over the noise and chaos.
A motley crew of kibitzers, many of whom don't drive, hang out on Brochu's premises, reading tabloids, exchanging wisecracks and arguing their theories.
There's plenty of action, intrigue, and subterfuge in exotic locales around the world with a compelling variety of weapons and gadgets and a motley cast of nefarious villains to contend with.
Paul O'Grady is Ray, bingo caller and manager, who presides over a motley staff.
They were a motley crew, to say the least. Times, Sunday Times
Shame about the motley crew of wet experts flopping about in front of them. Times, Sunday Times
I looked at the motley bunch we were sailing with and began to feel uneasy about the trip.
In daylight, the bidonville is a motley jumble of houses, a few shops, Books news, reviews and author interviews | guardian.co.uk
On this motley background, the artist painted a pattern of thick black lines suggesting the outlines of many small adjoining stones.
He joined the school football team, a motley collection of toughs.
The Sophists were a motley bunch - some hailed from the Athenian polis or other city-states, but the majority came from Ionia, in Asia Minor.
Coca-Cola is a Motley Fool Income Investor pick.
In their places for the home side, a motley collection of untried young players and expensive misfits. Times, Sunday Times
Only then did he step inside, allowing Anna to take his coat and hang it on the stand beside a motley collection of outerwear. NOBLE BEGINNNINGS
So they were a motley, crossbred kind of a family, scrambling along more or less together to get through the frantic day. FLIGHT LESSONS
Of the Dog tribe were they, an offcast of the Great Slaves, according to Rea, and as motley, starring and starved as the Yellow Knives. The Last of the Plainsmen
The issues the Republicans deem worthy of constitutional protection are a motley lot of special-interest pleadings.
So there we were last night at Brandon's bar in the Arcade — a motley collection of journalists and political hangers-on.
This quirky dramedy, about a motley crue that meets weekly at a beginner's swimming class, had a party that was more packed than a public pool in July. Rowan Riley: Tribeca Nights: A Rundown of Premiere Parties
The motley cast of talented misfits is trying to bring down a thousand-year empire (try to avoid thinking “reich”), but the heroes discover to their dismay that, bad as the empire was, it was holding back something even worse. Stromata Blog:
A motley crew for the most part, with the reputation of being beer-swilling, womanising chauvinists.
I looked at the motley bunch we were sailing with and began to feel uneasy about the trip.
Mother boiled cauldrons of red sugar water daily and filled a motley collection of feeders which were suspended at various locations around the yard.
She snorted at the thought - if he truly had convinced himself that she was blind to his double-faced ways, he was more of a fool than those who wore motley and feathers and danced for ladies.
It is suddenly fashionable again to yell abuse at the motley collection of characters under the spotlight on our screens. The Sun
The people in motley processions surge toward the center of attraction in the courtyard of the Golden Tiled Temple, where in a pavillion erected as a temporary shrine stands the great butter image they have come to worship. With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple: Narrative of Four Years' Residence on the Tibetan Borders, and of a Journey into the Far Interior
The audience was a motley crew of students and tourists.
The room was filled with a motley collection of furniture and paintings.
What a motley bunch we were! A Channel of Peace
He gives us a wonderful tale of hitch-hiking aboard a motley assortment of craft - freights, dhows, yachts and fishing smacks and meeting interesting and colourful men and women on the way.
The public bar was often filled with a motley, but mostly friendly, assortment of bikers and metalheads.
I liked the mice in suits of armour and the Mouse King in red-and-gold motley.
Then came freaks and dwarves, faces pugged or painted, some in horn-bedecked masks sewn with bells, capering on malformed legs and clad in the motley of centunculi, vividly patched coats like fragmented rainbows. Fortune's Favorites
Elsewhere, gun fanciers can pay as much as 1,000 for 800 rounds of ammunition to blast away at a motley variety of banged-up cars, buses and boats with a .50-calibre heavy machine gun.
But New England had had a fright, and next year, a motley force of armed merchantmen and fishing vessels set out from Boston to capture Louisbourg.
Others open a fist to show a motley handful of pebbles from white to green to brown. Times, Sunday Times
The novel received wide critical acclaim and Motley's harsh, unrelenting realism invited comparisons with Richard Wright and the revered naturalists Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris.
Alas, when we went on stage that night it was to the usual motley bunch of our mates, girlfriends and hangers on.
The deformities of his body are magnified by his motley, and his glassy eye stares all the more blankly for the surrounding grease paint.
The claim rang false because punk in its pure form disavowed commercial success, a disavowal that united an otherwise motley array of youth subcultures: high-school misfits, skateboard kids, hardcore skinheads, doped-out postcollegiate slackers. Michael Dirda reviews "Listen to This," by music critic Alex Ross
A motley collection of bones and antlers is nailed to the woodshed.
His pockets contained a motley collection of coins, movie ticket stubs, and old candies.
Michael's first album ‘Missing You’ features an odd motley of styles carefully woven together and united by a great singing voice.
International motley is not limited to any continent, nor did it originate in any theory or concept of dress. The End of the Work Ethic
The tracing of terrorists, murderers, swindlers, child-molesters and the whole motley bunch of miscreants who flit back and forth across international borders had a higher priority.
Motley entered the Miss Wisconsin pageant on a bet and was crowned in 2004. American former beauty queen defending foreigners stuck in Afghan legal system
A motley little crowd of regulars braved the pouring rain and turned up.
She was a black haired girl of nineteen or twenty, dressed in a motley of flowered calico and silk, with strings of gold and silver coins looped around her olive neck. The Oakdale Affair
The people she'd invited were a pretty motley crew.
A motley crew of hapless musicians and street performers are seen trying to cheer up citizens in what appears to be a breadline.
The ceremony was boring other than seeing faculty and the bishop dressed in their finest motley garments.
Here was this motley crew, coming along with a madcap idea, but they could see they were getting something unique.
We were a motley collection of mostly 30 - ish women, most of us quietly, happily married (well, except for me).
He is a pleasantly scheming crook, with motley clothes and inimitable hairstyle; his definite traits are his love of rum, his philosophical resolve on revenge and his readiness to mock any expression of solemnity.
‘I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams,’ he told the gathered throng, flexing the muscles and exercising the tattoos exposed by his Motley Crue singlet.
When the Duchess of Newcastle appears in public in outlandish attire or publishes her original views on women's position in society, she is not dressed in motley.
While they may be a motley crew, they are also among the top vote getters in the country.
It lead to what appeared to be a cabin, again constructed from petrified wood -- a motley assortment of branches and sheets. Conan Fan Fiction!
Needless to say, the show will end up glorifying his motley collection of colourful misfits. Times, Sunday Times
Now we have a motley of cultures and religions to teach our children.
By 1998, the BJP had recognised this only too well, cobbling together a motley, and ideologically disparate, bunch of allies.
Oddly, the entire show was performed in the foyer of the Royal Festival Hall, London, in front of a motley audience of fans, a few bystanders, some wearied commissionaires and people outside, looking in through the window.
Remember how he collected his motley crew of disciples? Christianity Today

How To Use Motley In A Sentence

Report a problem

Please indicate a type of error

Additional information (optional):