English

Noun

crazyquilt ‎(plural crazyquilts)

1. A patchwork; a textile formed of seemingly random and unmatched pieces of fabric sewed together with no regular pattern.
2. (by extension) Any random assortment of things.
   • 1914, John Vietch Shoemaker, Health and Beauty, page 201:

     The mind becomes a rag-bag of information capable of affording nothing in production but a crazyquilt of information.

   • 2003, Loren W. Cooper, A Slow and Silent Stream, page 88:

     The staggered effect of random building resulted in a crazyquilt of dead ends and narrow, jagged alleyways.

   • 2005, Edwin S. Gaustad, Unto A Good Land: A History Of The American People - Volume 1, page 568:

     The plains was a crazyquilt of immigrant/ethnic communities of Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Germans, Russian Germans, Poles, Czechs, Russians, Eastern European Jews, and others.

Adjective

crazyquilt ‎(comparative more crazyquilt, superlative most crazyquilt)

1. Formed by a seemingly random assortment of things.
   • 1975, Ruth I. Knee, Human Factors in Long Term Health Care, page 63:

     World War II drained the community of physicians and health personnel, created housing shortages and job mobility, and served to push more people into a crazyquilt variety of nursing homes which seemed to assure housing and medical care.

   • 2000, Joseph L. Sax, Legal Control of Water Resources: Cases and Materials, page 758:

     Furthermore, groundwater doctrines follow a much more crazyquilt pattern, and several states have unique statutory approaches to groundwater.

   • 2013, Douglas Schofield, Succession, page 37:

     The stark glare reflecting from the screen spread a crazyquilt pattern of light and shadow across the vaulted ceiling above.

Derived terms

• crazyquilted
• crazyquilting