mellow
Americanadjective
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soft, sweet, and full-flavored from ripeness, as fruit.
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well-matured, as wines.
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soft and rich, as sound, tones, color, or light.
- Antonyms:
- harsh
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made gentle and compassionate by age or maturity; softened.
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friable or loamy, as soil.
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mildly and pleasantly intoxicated or high.
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pleasantly agreeable; free from tension, discord, etc..
a mellow neighborhood.
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affably relaxed; easygoing; genial.
a mellow teacher who is very popular with her students.
verb (used with or without object)
noun
verb phrase
adjective
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(esp of fruits) full-flavoured; sweet; ripe
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(esp of wines) well-matured
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(esp of colours or sounds) soft or rich
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kind-hearted, esp through maturity or old age
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genial, as through the effects of alcohol
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(of soil) soft and loamy
verb
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to make or become mellow; soften; mature
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(foll by out) to become calm and relaxed or (esp of a drug) to have a calming or relaxing effect on (someone)
Usage
What does mellow mean? Mellow means soft, sweet, and full of flavor, usually in reference to ripe fruits. Mellow can also mean well matured, especially in reference to wine. Mellow can also mean soft and rich, usually in reference to sound, color, or musical tone. And mellow can describe a mild and pleasant intoxication or high. You’ll also see mellow used in reference to people. A mellow person is usually easy-going and relaxed. If they’ve mellowed over time, they’ve become more relaxed. In slang, mellow means a mood or atmosphere of relaxation. You might hear something like “Don’t harsh my mellow,” meaning “Don’t spoil my good mood.”Example: Luis became much more mellow after they left their stressful job.
Synonym Usage
See ripe.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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mellownessnoun
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overmellownessnoun
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overmellowadjective
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unmellowadjective
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unmellowedadjective
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mellowlyadverb
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overmellowlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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mellowsimple
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mellowssimple
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have mellowedperfect
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has mellowedperfect
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am mellowingprogressive
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are mellowingprogressive
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is mellowingprogressive
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have been mellowingperfect progressive
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has been mellowingperfect progressive
Past
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mellowedsimple
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had mellowedperfect
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was mellowingprogressive
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were mellowingprogressive
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had been mellowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mellow
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English mel(o)we, alteration (perhaps by dissimilation, in phrase meruw fruit ) of Middle English meruw, Old English meru “soft”
Explanation
When something becomes mellow, it gets softer or more relaxed. People are often said to mellow with age, meaning their aggressiveness, their sarcasm, and their short temper have given way to a more easygoing, genial manner. Wine and other foods mellow just like people, and can be described as "having mellowed" when they reach a full and pleasing flavor, without sharpness. The laid-back quality of jazz pieces like John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” is often described as mellow. Sometimes the musicians who play them are mellow too. When people are slightly and pleasantly intoxicated, they often claim to be feeling mellow, having attained a relaxed and agreeable state without even having to grow old.
Vocabulary lists containing mellow
Mellow Out: Synonyms for "Calm"
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"The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes
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145th Street
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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.
See Examples For:
A muscular female soprano — Chi’cas Reid — dominates the vocal mix, with Ayers’ mellow baritone in a supporting role.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026
Over time, "you mellow, build networks and take what you can", often in the private sector.
From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2026
That mellow approach made her such an outlier in the vicious world of international figure skating that she might as well have showed up with roller skates.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 19, 2026
Composer Bernard Herrmann’s score, his last, is alternately mellow and roiling, befitting its placid but simmering antihero.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
He called us naive firebrands, adding that we would mellow with age.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
The inner fire and determination remain, but he is mellower, more mature these days.
From BBC ● Mar. 23, 2026
They were considerably mellower than the originals—we got a taste of what those might have been like from a brief preview set performed by the blues guitarist and singer Memphis Gold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 9, 2025
“Yacht rock” quickly entered the lexicon as a catchy and evocative genre tag for the mellower side of ’70s pop; yacht rock–themed parties and DJ nights have proliferated ever since.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2023
Played live under the big screen on Saturday at the Philadelphia Film Center, this grinding score occasionally lightens for moments of mellower mournfulness.
From New York Times ● Oct. 3, 2022
Quackenbush felt mellower by the end of the afternoon as we stood on the float in front of the Crew House, gathering up towels.
From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
Even the mellowest teens are raging against the pandemic quarantine.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 23, 2020
Michael Kiwanuka – Solid Ground The mellowest track on the singer-songwriter’s superb third album strips his sound back to electric piano and strings.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 17, 2020
Koenig, who carries himself like the mellowest dude at a black-tie event, doesn’t mind if a listener takes something real in his lyrics for something imagined.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2019
“Music After the Fall,” like the blog, addresses a vast range of music, from the gnarliest experimentalism to the mellowest minimalism, and Rutherford-Johnson applies a critical intelligence that is at once rigorous and generous.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 20, 2018
I say, but the master-at-arms seems to be ignoring me now, so I direct the question to the skull with a rose in its mouth, figuring it might be the mellowest one.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
And Joq is genuinely fascinated by the way hickory smoke mellows and rounds out a pungent blue cheese.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
"Can y'all come straighten it up over here? It's not looking luxurious," Sean "Diddy" Combs says in a voice note to his personal assistants as R&B music mellows in the background.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2025
The spinach mellows everything out, and adding heavy cream to the eggs helps them to bake up nice and fluffy, kind of like a quiche, instead of dry and gritty.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 18, 2023
Chopped basil leaves are added to the freshly cooked chicken, which mellows the herb’s flavor as the leaves gently wilt while we cook sugar snap peas.
From Washington Times ● May 2, 2023
On them fruit never fails; it is not gone in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; for constantly the west wind's breath brings some to bud and mellows others.
From Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists by Ashmun, Margaret
His views had mellowed by the time he took charge of that “historic disaster” with its awesome control over money and banks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
They have since mellowed to a recent 6.3%.
From Barron's ● Apr. 20, 2026
As much as Bellamy might have mellowed as a coach, his half-time tirade demonstrated that his fiery temper is still in there somewhere.
From BBC ● Mar. 31, 2026
In Sudan’s case, she has outsmarted the risk of succumbing to tradition, and the freedom has raised and mellowed all stakes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2025
Father’s gentle courtesy had disarmed and mellowed her and, though she would have died sooner than admit it, she loved him as fiercely as she disliked the rest of the world.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
“Dancing on the Ceiling” does the opposite, starting with very verbose Art Tatum-style arpeggios in the verse but then mellowing out in the chorus, and quoting “All This and Heaven Too.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 2026
Olivia Newton-John is mellowing out on the white slip-covered couch in her Malibu living room.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2022
Though Harley and Ivy’s honeymoon phase is already beginning to wane as Harley Quinn’s third season opens, the mellowing of their relationship’s something the series never really frames as a sign of danger.
From The Verge ● Jul. 27, 2022
Dina’s glory, as always, is her delivery: Nuts, without the mellowing influence of irony, so it doesn’t feel like she’s in on the joke.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 16, 2020
It was something about her lately, a mellowing, a softening from which this note had come.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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.
