melee

Pluralmelees

Formsmelees, meleeing, meleed

1. 1
   noisy fightnouncountable

   A loud, confused, or chaotic fight or argument.

   Several players joined the melee after the late hit, and two were ejected.

   Police arrived to break up a melee outside the nightclub.

   Similarbrawl, scuffle, fracas, free-for-all, fight

   Note

   News and sports reports use it for a scuffle that keeps drawing people in, so its usual verbs are join and break up; Phil McNulty's BBC report of a Chelsea match has John Terry joining the melee. It suggests noise and confusion more than deliberate combat, which is what separates it from the battlefield meaning.

2. 2
   close combatnouncountable or uncountable

   A battle fought at close range, especially one without ranged weapons; hand-to-hand combat.

   Once the lines collided, the battle dissolved into a savage melee of swords and axes.

   The game's early levels are mostly melee, with only a few chances to use a bow.

   Similarfray

   Note

   As a countable noun it is one tangled fight, such as the enormous melee at the center of a Game of Thrones battle episode; as an uncountable one it is a way of fighting, close in rather than at range. That second use sits comfortably before another noun: Drachinifel's account of the Guadalcanal campaign speaks of "air-to-air melee combat" when a fighter pilot runs out of ammunition.

3. 3
   chaosnouncountable or uncountable

   A confused, disorderly, or chaotic situation of any kind.

   Moving day turned the house into a melee of boxes, movers, and barking dogs.

   The first minutes of the trading day are a melee of orders and rumors.

   Similarjumble, tumult, muddle

   Note

   This sense stays closest to the word's origin: melee comes through French from Old French meslee, "mixed", and ultimately from the Latin verb for mixing, so here it names a jumble of things or people rather than a fight. Medley is the same word by another route. James Lambert writes of a "melee of intersections between English and Cantonese".

4. 4
   close-range weaponadjective

   Of a weapon, used in close-range combat, as a sword is, rather than at a distance.

   The latest patch made melee weapons hit harder than most rifles.

   Daggers are fast melee weapons, but their reach is short.

   Oppositeranged

   Note

   Game rules sort every weapon into melee or ranged, and the Basic Rules for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition draw the line in feet: a melee weapon attacks a target within 5 feet, a ranged weapon one farther off. Because it names a class, it has no comparative and usually sits right before its noun, as in melee weapon.

5. 5
   heated debatenouncountable or uncountable

   Lively contention or debate; a skirmish between opposing sides.

   Late in the campaign, the senator waded into the melee over health care.

   The proposal set off a fierce melee among economists that played out in the journals for a year.

   Similarfray, debate, controversy, skirmish

6. 6
   verbslangtransitive or intransitive

   To hit someone at close quarters instead of shooting, blowing them up, or damaging them from a distance, often with a hand-to-hand weapon.

   Tanks melee at the front while the healers stay back.

   She crept up behind the sniper and meleed him before he could turn around.

   Note

   Gamers made this verb from the noun, and its forms look strange on the page but follow the usual rules: she melees, he is meleeing, they meleed the boss. It belongs to game chat and online play; outside that world, hit or strike is the word to use.

7. 7
   close fighteradjective

   Of a game character, fighting with melee weapons.

   Melee classes need heavy armor because they spend every fight in the thick of the action.

   The boss is easy for ranged players but brutal for melee heroes.

   Oppositeranged

   Note

   Players stretch it from single characters to classes, builds and the people who play them: melee classes, a melee build, melee players. In team games it can even stand alone for the fighters as a group, as in a raid with too many melee and too few healers.

8. 8
   small gemsnoununcountable

   Small cut and polished gemstones, sold in lots rather than one by one.

   The dealer bought a parcel of diamond melee at the trade show.

   A row of sapphire melee runs along each side of the band.

9. 9
   video gamenoununcountable

   Short name for the video game Super Smash Bros. Melee.

   He brought his old console to the party so everyone could play Melee.

   Competitive Melee players drill the same combos for hours.

   Note

   Players call the game by the last word of its title, usually with a capital M, and use it alone or before another noun: they play Melee and enter Melee tournaments. It names a single game, not the whole Super Smash Bros. series.

10. 10
    nounhistoricalcountable

    A cavalry exercise in which two groups of riders try to cut paper plumes from their opponents' helmets, until one side has no plumes left.

    The regiment closed its summer drills with a melee on the parade ground, watched by the general.

    By the end of the melee, only two riders on the red side still wore their plumes.

    Note

    The cavalry used it as a drill, not a real fight: riders closed in on each other as they would in close combat, but their blades went for the paper plumes, not for the men wearing them. It is a historical word now, the name of a training game rather than of anything fought today.

Showing meanings only. Show all 10