melt
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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to become liquefied by warmth or heat, as ice, snow, butter, or metal.
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to become liquid; dissolve.
Let the cough drop melt in your mouth.
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to pass, dwindle, or fade gradually (often followed byaway ).
His fortune slowly melted away.
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to pass, change, or blend gradually (often followed byinto ).
Night melted into day.
- Synonyms:
- fade
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to become softened in feeling by pity, sympathy, love, or the like.
The tyrant's heart would not melt.
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Obsolete. to be subdued or overwhelmed by sorrow, dismay, etc.
verb (used with object)
noun
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the act or process of melting; state of being melted.
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something that is melted.
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a quantity melted at one time.
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a sandwich or other dish topped with cheese and heated through until the cheese melts.
a tuna melt.
noun
verb
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to liquefy (a solid) or (of a solid) to become liquefied, as a result of the action of heat
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to become or make liquid; dissolve
cakes that melt in the mouth
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(often foll by away) to disappear; fade
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(foll by down) to melt (metal scrap) for reuse
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(often foll by into) to blend or cause to blend gradually
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to make or become emotional or sentimental; soften
noun
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the act or process of melting
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something melted or an amount melted
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To change from a solid to a liquid state by heating or being heated with sufficient energy at the melting point.
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See also heat of fusion
Synonym Usage
Melt, dissolve, fuse, thaw imply reducing a solid substance to a liquid state. To melt is to bring a solid to a liquid condition by the agency of heat: to melt butter. Dissolve, though sometimes used interchangeably with melt, applies to a different process, depending upon the fact that certain solids, placed in certain liquids, distribute their particles throughout the liquids: A greater number of solids can be dissolved in water and in alcohol than in any other liquids. To fuse is to subject a solid (usually a metal) to a very high temperature; it applies especially to melting or blending metals together: Bell metal is made by fusing copper and tin. To thaw is to restore a frozen substance to its normal (liquid, semiliquid, or more soft and pliable) state by raising its temperature above the freezing point: Sunshine will thaw ice in a lake.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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meltabilitynoun
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melternoun
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meltingnessnoun
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meltableadjective
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nonmeltableadjective
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nonmeltingadjective
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unmeltableadjective
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unmeltedadjective
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unmeltingadjective
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meltinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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meltsimple
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meltssimple
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have meltedperfect
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have moltenperfect
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has meltedperfect
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has moltenperfect
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am meltingprogressive
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are meltingprogressive
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is meltingprogressive
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have been meltingperfect progressive
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has been meltingperfect progressive
Past
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meltedsimple
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had meltedperfect
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had moltenperfect
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was meltingprogressive
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were meltingprogressive
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had been meltingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of melt1
First recorded before 900; Middle English melten, Old English meltan (intransitive), m(i)elten (transitive) “to melt, digest”; cognate with Old Norse melta “to digest,” Greek méldein “to melt”
Origin of melt2
First recorded in 1575–85; variant of milt
Explanation
To melt means to fade away slowly and disappear, like a snowman in the middle of the Sahara. "I'm melting! I'm melting!" — Those are the feeble cries of ice cubes on a hot summer day and Wicked Witches doused with water by a meddling girl from Kansas. To melt a stick of butter into liquid form sounds like an excellent idea for your popcorn — but perhaps not for your diet. And when your puppy looks up at you with those big brown puppy eyes, your heart probably melts — even if he just ate your slippers.
Vocabulary lists containing melt
Beowulf vocabulary
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Cheesy Goodness
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Words for Cheese Writers
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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.
Power plants harnessing this process couldn’t melt down and would create only a little short-lived radioactive waste, but they remain theoretical.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 9, 2026
It is best known for its unusually low melting point, which allows a gallium spoon to melt in a cup of hot tea.
From Science Daily • Jul. 9, 2026
Chronologically speaking, this is the first time in Elle’s life that her rosy outlook and zealous reverence for Cosmopolitan are powerless to melt the Seattle freeze.
From Salon • Jul. 6, 2026
He said 2026 was "surprisingly similar" to 2022, which for glaciers was "by far the most extreme year ever recorded in the Alps, with melt rates shattering everything we had seen before".
From Barron's • Jun. 27, 2026
Rock from the subducting plates turns to magma when it reaches the mantle, creating hot spots that, over millennia, melt through the crust and break through as lava, forming volcanoes.
From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland
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.
