melos
noun
the succession of musical tones constituting a melody.
melos
1 American
[mel-os, -ohs, mee-los, -lohs]
/ ˈmɛl ɒs, -oʊs, ˈmi lɒs, -loʊs /
noun
Melos
2
American
[mee-los, -lohs, mel-os, -ohs, mee-laws]
/ ˈmi lɒs, -loʊs, ˈmɛl ɒs, -oʊs, ˈmi lɔs /
Also
Milos.
noun
Melos
British
/ ˈmiːlɒs /
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of melos
First recorded in 1730–40, melos is from the Greek word mélos song, tune
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:
“After all,” she notes, “melodrama comes from melos, which means ‘music,’ ‘honey’; a drama queen is, nonetheless, a queen.”
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 31, 2019
Charles A. Taylor, 78, blood-&-thunder dramatist of the '90s; in Glendale, Calif. Five of his melos were running at once on Broadway in 1892.
From Time Magazine Archive
The earlier poets of the melos were for the most part natives of 'the sprinkled isles, Lily on lily that overlace the sea.'
From Love, Worship and Death Some Renderings from the Greek Anthology by Rennell Rodd
The music is ultra-Wagnerian, the finale genuine Strauss, with its swelling melos, its almost superhuman forcing of the emotional line to the ecstatic point.
From Ivory Apes and Peacocks by James Huneker
Even in its heyday, though the parts were ever so independent of one another, the mass of tone forms a great melody, or melos, moving on a firm harmonic foundation in the lowest part.
From Purcell by John F. Runciman
If Pericles’ funeral oration is a landmark of democratic virtue, the amoral facts of pure force become explicit in the “Melian dialogue” following the Athenian conquest of the neutral island of Melos in 415 B.C.:
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
But in the matchup against Melos, it was the Lakers veteran who came out with the win.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 9, 2021
Months later, the Melos lifted the first construction crane in the city's post-housing bubble era, betting they could find buyers for condos in a new 17-story tower.
From Reuters ● Mar. 10, 2013
The Melians predicted that the Athenians’ cruel treatment of Melos could provoke other neutral states into opposing Athens.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 12, 2012
On the vases of Melos, of the 7th century, which are, however, not Ionian, but rather Dorian in character, we have a certain number of mythological scenes, battles of Homeric heroes and the like.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 4 "Grasshopper" to "Greek Language" by Various
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.
