melt

(mĕlt)

v. melt·ed, melt·ing, melts

v.intr.

1. To be changed from a solid to a liquid state especially by the application of heat.

2. To dissolve: Sugar melts in water.

3. To disappear or vanish gradually as if by dissolving: The crowd melted away after the rally.

4. To pass or merge imperceptibly into something else: Sea melted into sky along the horizon.

5. To become softened in feeling: Our hearts melted at the child's tears.

6. Obsolete To be overcome or crushed, as by grief, dismay, or fear.

v.tr.

1. To change (a solid) to a liquid state especially by the application of heat.

2. To dissolve: The tide melted our sand castle away.

3. To cause to disappear gradually; disperse.

4. To cause (units) to blend: "Here individuals of all races are melted into a new race of men" (Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur).

5. To soften (someone's feelings); make gentle or tender.

1. A melted solid; a fused mass.

2. The state of being melted.

a. The act or operation of melting.

b. The quantity melted at a single operation or in one period.

4. A usually open sandwich topped with melted cheese: a tuna melt.

Phrasal Verb:

melt down

1. To undergo a meltdown. Used of a nuclear reactor.

2. To undergo a failure or collapse.

3. To become very angry or upset.

[Middle English melten, from Old English meltan; see mel- in Indo-European roots.]

melt′a·bil′i·ty n.

melt′a·ble adj.

melt′er n.

melt′ing·ly adv.

melt′y adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

melted - changed from a solid to a liquid state; "rivers filled to overflowing by melted snow"

liquified, liquid

unfrozen - not frozen; "unfrozen ground"

unmelted - not melted; "streets unpassable because of piles of unmelted snow"

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

What is the use of that, when a third of their army has melted away on the road from Moscow to Vyazma without any battle?" But drawing from his aged wisdom what they could understand, he told them of the golden bridge, and they laughed at and slandered him, flinging themselves on, rending and exulting over the dying beast.

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As the weather grew warmer it was not sensibly worn away by the water, nor broken up and floated off as in rivers, but, though it was completely melted for half a rod in width about the shore, the middle was merely honeycombed and saturated with water, so that you could put your foot through it when six inches thick; but by the next day evening, perhaps, after a warm rain followed by fog, it would have wholly disappeared, all gone off with the fog, spirited away.

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"Well, in a few minutes I shall be all melted, and you will have the castle to yourself.

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The snows fell and melted, yet he never returned; and at last the heart of the girl grew cold and hard, and her little boy became a burden in her eyes, till one day she spoke thus to him: 'See, there is food for many days to come.

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Joyfully Ripple gave her the chain; but, as soon as it touched her hand, the jewels melted like snow, and fell in bright drops to the ground; at this the Queen's eyes flashed, and the Spirits gathered angrily about poor Ripple, who looked sadly at the broken chain, and thought in vain what she could give, to win the thing she longed so earnestly for.

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She was clad in flowing, fluffy robes of soft material that reminded Dorothy of woven cobwebs, only it was colored in soft tintings of violet, rose, topaz, olive, azure, and white, mingled together most harmoniously in stripes which melted one into the other with soft blendings.

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No less swift than the hatchet stroke was the limp placidity into which Borckman's body melted to the deck.

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"I may say, steward," the Ancient Mariner resumed, "that I was born with a silver spoon that melted in my mouth and left me a proper prodigal son.

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The cold sweat melted from their limbs, Nor rot nor reek did they: The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away.

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The slight suspicion with which his hearers at first listened to him, gradually melted away before the convincing simplicity of his distress: it was impossible for the neighbours to doubt that Marner was telling the truth, not because they were capable of arguing at once from the nature of his statements to the absence of any motive for making them falsely, but because, as Mr.

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All this old and new silver being melted down and coined, the result was an immense amount of splendid shillings, sixpences, and threepences.

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It was a piece of an ice-floe melted down to a fragment, but still big enough to sink a ship, and floating lower than any raft, right in our way, as if ambushed among the waves with murderous intent.

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