Advertisement

View synonyms for melt

melt

1

[ melt ]

verb (used without object)

, melt·ed, melt·ed or mol·ten [mohl, -tn], melt·ing.
  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 by away ):

    His fortune slowly melted away.

  4. to pass, change, or blend gradually (often followed by into ):

    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)

, melt·ed, melt·ed or mol·ten [mohl, -tn], melt·ing.
  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

/ mĕlt /

  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


Discover More

Derived Forms

  • ˈmelter, noun
  • ˈmeltingness, noun
  • ˈmeltable, adjective
  • ˈmeltingly, adverb
  • ˌmeltaˈbility, noun

Discover More

Other Words From

  • melt·a·ble adjective
  • melt·a·bil·i·ty [mel-t, uh, -, bil, -i-tee], noun
  • melt·ing·ly adverb
  • melt·ing·ness noun
  • non·melt·a·ble adjective
  • non·melt·ing adjective
  • un·melt·a·ble adjective
  • un·melt·ed adjective
  • un·melt·ing adjective

Discover More

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

Discover More

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

Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

In addition to the idiom beginning with melt , also see butter wouldn't melt .

Discover More

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.

Discover More

Example Sentences

“Even though the surface temperature is very low,” Ojha says, “because of these heat-producing elements that are undoubtedly present in any rocky planet, it would create enough heat to create a melt and you could potentially have a deep biosphere.”

The year 2020 has not been good to many things, but it has been very, very good to the tuna melt.

Human actions are altering the climate 170 times faster than natural forces, bringing about extreme weather, warming oceans, ice melt, and rising sea levels.

Eighteen months of summer melt when you’re already three grades behind is virtually impossible to come back from.

When there isn’t enough ice to reflect the sun’s rays back into space, that heat is instead absorbed by the ocean, accelerating further ice melt while altering ocean currents, weakening the jet stream and changing wind patterns.

From Time

While the beans are cooling and drying, melt the butter in a saute pan over medium heat.

Add chocolate and butter to the bowl and melt, stirring to combine.

The pictures which would melt even the hardest of Republcian hearts were taken at the end of November.

Dessert is a slice of melt-in-your-mouth treacle tart with a dollop of perfectly tart clotted cream.

Melt butter and marshmallow in big stock pot then add puffed rice cereal.

From the said mixture, although they tried it several times, it was impossible to fuse or melt the said ore.

O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down: the mountains would melt away at thy presence.

I feel all untied in a place like this; the rigidity of one's nature begins to melt and flow.

In his later years he must often have wished his “too too solid flesh would melt,” for it had become a heavy burden.

The anger and indignation Jess had felt began to melt before this apology and the ladys frank manner.

Advertisement

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


Melrose Parkmeltage