melt
1- to become liquefied by warmth or heat, as ice, snow, butter, or metal.
- to become liquid; dissolve: Let the cough drop melt in your mouth.
- to pass, dwindle, or fade gradually (often followed by away): His fortune slowly melted away.
- to pass, change, or blend gradually (often followed by into): Night melted into day.
- to become softened in feeling by pity, sympathy, love, or the like: The tyrant's heart would not melt.
- Obsolete. to be subdued or overwhelmed by sorrow, dismay, etc.
- to reduce to a liquid state by warmth or heat; fuse: Fire melts ice.
- to cause to pass away or fade.
- to cause to pass, change, or blend gradually.
- to soften in feeling, as a person or the heart.
- the act or process of melting; state of being melted.
- something that is melted.
- a quantity melted at one time.
- a sandwich or other dish topped with melted cheese: a tuna melt.
Origin of melt
1Synonyms for melt
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.commelt
2- the spleen, especially that of a cow, pig, etc.
Origin of melt
2Related Words for melt
thaw, disintegrate, evaporate, soften, heat, warm, fade, vanish, disappear, touch, deliquesce, run, evanesce, render, merge, flow, flux, fuse, disperse, goExamples from the Web for melt
Contemporary Examples of melt
While the beans are cooling and drying, melt the butter in a saute pan over medium heat.
Add chocolate and butter to the bowl and melt, stirring to combine.
Melt butter and marshmallow in big stock pot then add puffed rice cereal.
Epic Meal Empire’s Meat Monstrosities: From the Bacon Spider to the CinnabattleshipHarley Morenstein
July 26, 2014
Friction between air and the weapon creates temperatures of up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt steel.
Combined, those give the planet a year-round surface temperature hot enough to melt lead.
Historical Examples of melt
If the ice that froze up the spring of his love would but begin to melt!
Weighed and WantingGeorge MacDonald
I'm fit to melt—there is no strength left in me; here, come and take the rod!'
Camps, Quarters and Casual PlacesArchibald Forbes
Put some butter into a sauce-pan, set it on hot coals, and melt and skim it.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesEliza Leslie
Put the sugar to melt in the liquid, and let it set all night.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesEliza Leslie
Melt a pound of butter by putting it into a skillet on hot coals.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesEliza Leslie
melt
- to liquefy (a solid) or (of a solid) to become liquefied, as a result of the action of heat
- to become or make liquid; dissolvecakes that melt in the mouth
- (often foll by away) to disappear; fade
- (foll by down) to melt (metal scrap) for reuse
- (often foll by into) to blend or cause to blend gradually
- to make or become emotional or sentimental; soften
- the act or process of melting
- something melted or an amount melted
Word Origin for melt
Word Origin and History for melt
Old English meltan "become liquid, consume by fire, burn up" (class III strong verb; past tense mealt, past participle molten), from Proto-Germanic *meltanan; fused with Old English gemæltan (Anglian), gemyltan (West Saxon) "make liquid," from Proto-Germanic *gamaltijanan (cf. Old Norse melta "to digest"), both from PIE *meldh-, (cf. Sanskrit mrduh "soft, mild," Greek meldein "to melt, make liquid," Latin mollis "soft, mild"), from root *mel- "soft," with derivatives referring to soft or softened (especially ground) materials (see mild). Figurative use by c.1200. Related: Melted; melting.
Of food, to melt in (one's) mouth is from 1690s. Melting pot is from 1540s; figurative use from 1855; popularized with reference to America by play "The Melting Pot" by Israel Zangwill (1908).
1854, "molten metal," from melt (v.). In reference to a type of sandwich topped by melted cheese, 1980, American English.
melt
- To change from a solid to a liquid state by heating or being heated with sufficient energy at the melting point. See also heat of fusion.
Idioms and Phrases with melt
melt
In addition to the idiom beginning with melt
- melt in one's mouth
also see:
- butter wouldn't melt