- past participle of melt.
molten
Americanverb
adjective
-
liquefied by heat; in a state of fusion; melted.
molten lead.
-
produced by melting and casting.
a molten image.
adjective
-
liquefied; melted
molten lead
-
made by having been melted
molten casts
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of molten
1250–1300; Middle English; old past participle of melt 1
Explanation
Molten describes an object that's reduced to liquid form by heating. You're probably familiar with lava, the molten rock that explodes out of a volcano. Molten originated from the Old English verb meltian, meaning "become liquid." It takes incredibly high temperatures to get an object that was once rock solid to be transformed into a liquid state. Something much safer than lava has made the term molten popular — molten chocolate cake. This cake has a center that's filled with hot, gooey pudding-like chocolate that oozes out. This is probably the only molten thing you'd ever want to touch.
Vocabulary lists containing molten
Earth Science - Middle School
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Rocks and Minerals - Introductory
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Earth Science - High School
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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.
It suggests that the magma now stored beneath the volcano was supplied by new injections of molten rock from deeper within Earth's crust or mantle, rather than remaining unchanged since the previous eruption.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2026
Lava tubes form when the outer surface of flowing lava cools and hardens while molten rock continues moving beneath it.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
Half the table orders Diet Coke, the other water with lemon; someone requests a skillet of molten white queso.
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2026
During the 1960s, its Molten Salt Reactor Experiment demonstrated that mixtures of molten salts could function as both nuclear fuel and reactor coolant.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2026
Caesar pictured his father cutting cane in a Florida hell, burning his flesh as he stooped over the big kettles of molten sugar.
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
