- 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.
They stand amid a Seussian obstacle course of towers of paper, cabinets of type, and pools of molten lead.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
The Giant's Causeway is located in Country Antrim, and was formed by intense volcanic activity which forced molten rock up through cracks in the earth.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
Mr. Esparza, a four-time Tony nominee, has often exuded a molten intensity onstage, and he bristles with dark ferocity here.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
Earth's molten outer core lies about 2200 km below the surface.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 7, 2026
The Linotype machine resembled a medieval torture device with its hulking metal form and the wisps of steam curling from the cauldron of molten lead in its core.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
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.
