melt

¹

[melt]

verb (used without object)

melted, melted, molten, melting. 

1. to become liquefied by warmth or heat, as ice, snow, butter, or metal.

2. to become liquid; dissolve.

   Let the cough drop melt in your mouth.

3. to pass, dwindle, or fade gradually (often followed byaway ).

   His fortune slowly melted away.

4. to pass, change, or blend gradually (often followed byinto ).

   Night melted into day.

   Synonyms: fade

5. to become softened in feeling by pity, sympathy, love, or the like.

   The tyrant's heart would not melt.

6. Obsolete.,  to be subdued or overwhelmed by sorrow, dismay, etc.

verb (used with object)

melted, melted, molten, melting. 

1. to reduce to a liquid state by warmth or heat; fuse.

   Fire melts ice.

2. to cause to pass away or fade.

3. to cause to pass, change, or blend gradually.

4. to soften in feeling, as a person or the heart.

   Synonyms: touch, mollify, disarm, affect

noun

1. the act or process of melting; state of being melted.

2. something that is melted.

3. a quantity melted at one time.

4. a sandwich or other dish topped with cheese and heated through until the cheese melts.

   a tuna melt.

melt

²

[melt]

noun

1. the spleen, especially that of a cow, pig, etc.

melt

/ mɛlt /

verb

1. to liquefy (a solid) or (of a solid) to become liquefied, as a result of the action of heat

2. to become or make liquid; dissolve

   cakes that melt in the mouth

3. (often foll by away) to disappear; fade

4. (foll by down) to melt (metal scrap) for reuse

5. (often foll by into) to blend or cause to blend gradually

6. to make or become emotional or sentimental; soften

noun

1. the act or process of melting

2. something melted or an amount melted

melt

1. To change from a solid to a liquid state by heating or being heated with sufficient energy at the melting point.

2. See also heat of fusion

Other Word Forms

• meltable adjective
• meltability noun
• meltingly adverb
• meltingness noun
• nonmeltable adjective
• nonmelting adjective
• unmeltable adjective
• unmelted adjective
• unmelting adjective
• melter noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of melt¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English melten, Old English meltan (intransitive), m(i)elten (transitive) “to melt, digest”; cognate with Old Norse melta “to digest,” Greek méldein “to melt”

Origin of melt²

First recorded in 1575–85; variant of milt

Word History and Origins

Origin of melt¹

Old English meltan to digest; related to Old Norse melta to malt (beer), digest, Greek meldein to melt

Idioms and Phrases

• butter wouldn't melt

Synonym Study

Melt, dissolve, fuse, thaw imply reducing a solid substance to a liquid state. To melt is to bring a solid to a liquid condition by the agency of heat: to melt butter. Dissolve, though sometimes used interchangeably with melt, applies to a different process, depending upon the fact that certain solids, placed in certain liquids, distribute their particles throughout the liquids: A greater number of solids can be dissolved in water and in alcohol than in any other liquids. To fuse is to subject a solid (usually a metal) to a very high temperature; it applies especially to melting or blending metals together: Bell metal is made by fusing copper and tin. To thaw is to restore a frozen substance to its normal (liquid, semiliquid, or more soft and pliable) state by raising its temperature above the freezing point: Sunshine will thaw ice in a lake.

Example Sentences

These furnaces use electricity, not heat from burning fossil fuels, to melt scrap steel – for example – and recycle it.

From BBC

“He has an ability to build relationships across a melting pot of personalities,” Herbert said.

From Los Angeles Times

If, however, at lunch in a restaurant near his Beverly Hills boutique during one of his occasional visits, a screen idol stopped by his table, he melted into schoolboy smiles and blushing laughter.

From Los Angeles Times

In addition to the melting of glaciers and ice caps, many regions are getting drier and depleting their groundwater.

From Los Angeles Times

Pigments made of minerals including hematite and rocks like lapis lazuli are ground into nanoparticles and suspended in silica, resembling “melted glass,” as Magaloni describes.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• disappear 
• disintegrate 
• evaporate 
• fade 
• heat 
• soften 
• thaw 
• vanish 
• warm