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• melos
  melos

  noun

  the succession of musical tones constituting a melody.
• Melos
  Melos

  noun

  a Greek island in the Cyclades, in the SW Aegean: statue, Venus de Milo, found here 1820. 51 sq. mi. (132 sq. km).

melos

¹ American  

[mel-os, -ohs, mee-los, -lohs] / ˈmɛl ɒs, -oʊs, ˈmi lɒs, -loʊs /

noun

1. the succession of musical tones constituting a melody.

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Melos ² American  

[mee-los, -lohs, mel-os, -ohs, mee-laws] / ˈmi lɒs, -loʊs, ˈmɛl ɒs, -oʊs, ˈmi lɔs /

Also Milos.

noun

1. a Greek island in the Cyclades, in the SW Aegean: statue, Venus de Milo, found here 1820. 51 sq. mi. (132 sq. km).

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Melos British  

/ ˈmiːlɒs /

noun

1. Modern Greek name: Mílos. an island in the SW Aegean Sea, in the Cyclades: of volcanic origin, with hot springs; centre of early Aegean civilization, where the Venus de Milo was found. Pop: 4771 (2001). Area: 132 sq km (51 sq miles)

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Other Word Forms

• Melian
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of melos

First recorded in 1730–40, melos is from the Greek word mélos song, tune

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

melos Melos

“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

This word melos is also applied to the peculiar style of vocal solo found in Wagner's music dramas.

From Music Notation and Terminology by Karl Wilson Gehrkens

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

Fifteen years later, the Athenians sent their navy to the neutral island of Melos, demanding that the Melians abandon their neutral stance, join the Athenian-dominated Delian League, and pay tribute to Athens.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026

Athens insisted that Melos join its alliance, noting threateningly that the powerful do what they want and the weak must accept it, according to the historian Thucydides in his famous "Melian Dialogue."

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2015

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

DIAGORAS, of Melos, surnamed the Atheist, poet and sophist, flourished in the second half of the 5th century B.C.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 "Destructors" to "Diameter" by Various

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