melt
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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to become liquefied by warmth or heat, as ice, snow, butter, or metal.
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to become liquid; dissolve.
Let the cough drop melt in your mouth.
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to pass, dwindle, or fade gradually (often followed byaway ).
His fortune slowly melted away.
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to pass, change, or blend gradually (often followed byinto ).
Night melted into day.
- Synonyms:
- fade
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to become softened in feeling by pity, sympathy, love, or the like.
The tyrant's heart would not melt.
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Obsolete. to be subdued or overwhelmed by sorrow, dismay, etc.
verb (used with object)
noun
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the act or process of melting; state of being melted.
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something that is melted.
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a quantity melted at one time.
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a sandwich or other dish topped with cheese and heated through until the cheese melts.
a tuna melt.
noun
verb
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to liquefy (a solid) or (of a solid) to become liquefied, as a result of the action of heat
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to become or make liquid; dissolve
cakes that melt in the mouth
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(often foll by away) to disappear; fade
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(foll by down) to melt (metal scrap) for reuse
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(often foll by into) to blend or cause to blend gradually
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to make or become emotional or sentimental; soften
noun
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the act or process of melting
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something melted or an amount melted
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To change from a solid to a liquid state by heating or being heated with sufficient energy at the melting point.
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See also heat of fusion
Related Words
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.
Other Word Forms
- meltability noun
- meltable adjective
- melter noun
- meltingly adverb
- meltingness noun
- nonmeltable adjective
- nonmelting adjective
- unmeltable adjective
- unmelted adjective
- unmelting adjective
Etymology
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
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Unlike the room I’d just left, this one was warm, and I felt the goose bumps on my arms melt back into my skin as I slid into a seat at the back.
From Literature
When heating intensifies, the ice shell can melt and become thinner.
From Science Daily
For Alarnab, spices frying, dough rising and cheese melting inside a kitchen offered an unlikely escape from the real world.
From Barron's
The volume of melted rock and the broad distribution of debris indicate a powerful event, though likely less intense than the impact that created the enormous Australasia field, which spans thousands of kilometers.
From Science Daily
After the judging, sadly the sculptures did not last and were left to melt in the snow, said Marsh.
From BBC
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.
