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 fol. by away): His fortune slowly melted away.
4.
to pass, change, or blend gradually (often fol. by into): Night melted into day.
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)
7.
to reduce to a liquid state by warmth or heat; fuse: Fire melts ice.
8.
to cause to pass away or fade.
9.
to cause to pass, change, or blend gradually.
10.
to soften in feeling, as a person or the heart.
–noun
11.
the act or process of melting; state of being melted.
12.
something that is melted.
13.
a quantity melted at one time.
14.
a sandwich or other dish topped with melted cheese: a tuna melt.
[Origin: bef. 900; ME melten, OE meltan (intrans.), m(i)elten (transit.) to melt, digest; c. ON melta to digest, Gk méldein to melt]
—Related forms
melt·a·ble, adjective
melt·a·bil·i·ty, noun
melt·ing·ly, adverb
melt·ing·ness, noun
—Synonyms 1.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 esp. 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. 4. dwindle. 10. gentle, mollify, relax.
Melt\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Melted (obs.) p. p. Molten; p. pr. & vb. n. Melting.] [AS. meltan; akin to Gr. me`ldein, E. malt, and prob. to E. smelt, v. [root]108. Cf. Smelt, v., Malt, Milt the spleen.]1. To reduce from a solid to a liquid state, as by heat; to liquefy; as, to melt wax, tallow, or lead; to melt ice or snow. 2. Hence: 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. Thou would'st have . . . melted down thy youth. --Shak. For pity melts the mind to love. --Dryden. Syn: To liquefy; fuse; thaw; mollify; soften.
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