polyglot = (non-linguistic) mixture

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Sun, Jan 01, 2006 at 10:01:47PM -0500, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>
> > Googling on "a polyglot of" finds all sorts of possible objects:
> > races, ethnicities/ethnic peoples, religions/religious beliefs,
> > nationalities, histories, intelligence agencies, regulations,
> > buildings, etc., etc. Is this a new usage, or has it been flying under
> > the lexicographic radar?
>
> The OED's draft entry for this (no longer labelled "rare", by
> the way) doesn't split it out, but has the note "Also in
> extended use", with the earliest example from 1913.

Sorry, the 1913 example is for the adjective in the sense
'heterogeneous'. There's a still earlier extended-use sense
of the noun (which is, as I said, no longer labelled "rare").

JTS