A medley is a mixture of different things combined together, like a musical performance that blends several songs into one continuous piece. You might hear a medley at a concert where the band plays snippets of their five biggest hits back-to-back, or a holiday medley on the radio that flows from “Jingle Bells” to “Deck the Halls” to “Silent Night” without stopping.

That sense of pleasing variety runs through all its uses. A vegetable medley at dinner combines carrots, green beans, and corn in one colorful serving. A medley relay in swimming has four swimmers, each using a different stroke: backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle.

Unlike a random jumble, a medley arranges its different elements thoughtfully. The songs in a musical medley connect smoothly, and the vegetables in a medley complement each other. When you create a medley of your favorite story ideas for a writing assignment, you blend them into something that works as a whole, choosing elements that complement each other. The variety is deliberate, chosen to create something more interesting than any single element alone.