motley crew

Originally used to refer to the crews of 17th- and 18th-century ships, which contained men of many different nationalities.

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motley crew (plural motley crews)

1. A group of people of mixed background, especially one with a common goal.
   • 1830 John Carne - Recollections of Travels in the East: Forming a Continuation of the Letters from the East

     Away they marched from the rocky region and miserable village where they were posted, a motley crew of Christians and Infidels, Catholics, Greeks, and adorers of the Prophet, all mingled together, to go and attack the holy city . . .

   • 1858, Dan King, Quackery Unmasked, Chapter XVIII:

     The honest Indian scorns all these schemes, and is never found among the motley crew of Indian doctors. It is made up not of genuine Indians, but of negroes, mulattoes, and, meanest of all, some white men, who have stolen the Indian livery for their own unhallowed purposes.

   • 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Green Flag:

     Along the edge of this position lay the Arab host – a motley crew of shock-headed desert clansmen, fierce predatory slave dealers of the interior, and wild dervishes from the Upper Nile, all blent together by their common fearlessness […]

   • 1894, Arthur Clark Kennedy, Erotica, She Walked Through Fire:

     Spotless amid a motley crew
     She passed the fiery ordeal through
     Unhurt, begirt as with a fence
     Of innocence.

   • 1906, Allen Chapman, Ralph of the Roundhouse, Chapter 19:

     No one responded to the offer. A little dirty-faced urchin, who looked unhappy and out of place with that motley crew, looked longingly at Ralph.

   • 2022 August 5, Bernd Debusmann Jr, “Obituary: Gary Schroen, the CIA spy sent to get Osama Bin Laden”, in BBC‎:

     Within days, Schroen and a motley crew of paramilitary officers became the first Americans on the ground in Afghanistan, armed with little more than satellite phones - but also millions of dollars in cash to curry favour with potential allies.