melt
Forms
- present (v1)
- melt
- past (v2)
- melted
- past participle (v3)
- melted
- present participle
- melting
- 3rd person singular
- melts
- Plural
- melts
Definitions
1.To change (or to be changed) from a solid state to a liquid state, usually by a gradual heat.
- I melted butter to make a cake.
- When the weather is warm, the snowman will disappear; he will melt.
2.To dissolve, disperse, vanish.
- I gave him a couple of Advil and, after a few minutes, urged him back onto the track. Over the next few laps his pained expression slowly melted, although he still shuffled with a slight limp.
3.To soften, as by a warming or kindly influence; to relax; to render gentle or susceptible to mild influences; sometimes, in a bad sense, to take away the firmness of; to weaken.
- For pity melts the mind to love.
- He was very dubious at first, but I believe the fellow is genuine in his attachment to the house. His final scruple melted when he learned that I should not require him to sit up with me.
4.To be discouraged.
1.The transition of matter from a solid state to a liquid state.
2.The springtime snow runoff in mountain regions.
3.Molten material, the product of melting.
- The crust (a mere 1% of the Earth's volume) is made of lighter melt products from the mantle.
- Users can see how a glacier at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania retreated between December 1986 and 2020, as well as glacial melt in Sermersooq, Greenland, between December 2000 and 2020.
4.A melt sandwich.
- I recently asked a group of people whether they had eaten tuna melts as a kid. Everyone remembered a version of this dish.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3695
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English melten, from a merger of Old English meltan (intransitive) and mieltan (transitive), both meaning “to melt, digest,” from Proto-West Germanic *meltan and *maltijan, from Proto-Germanic *meltaną and *maltijaną, both from Proto-Indo-European *(s)meld- (“melt”).