melt

Formsmelts, melting, melted

Pluralmelts

1. 1
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To change, or be changed, from a solid into a liquid, usually through gradual heating.

   Butter will melt in seconds on a hot skillet.

   The blacksmith melted scrap iron down into a single ingot.

   Similarliquefy, thaw

   Oppositefreeze, solidify, harden

   Note

   Two Old English verbs stand behind this sense: meltan, to become liquid, and mieltan, to make something liquid. When they merged, the modern verb inherited both jobs, so butter melts and you melt butter with no change of form. The past is regularly melted. Molt survives only as a rare alternative past and participle, so it is best avoided in ordinary writing.

2. 2
   verbfigurativelyintransitive

   To soften emotionally, or to be moved by tenderness or affection.

   Even the strict coach melted when his players surprised him with a card.

   Audiences melt during the film's final reunion scene.

   Similarsoften

   Oppositeharden

   Note

   Here the softening happens to the subject, with no object: she melted, my heart melted. It is the intransitive partner of the "softening" use, and heart is its favorite subject. Expect it in warm, affectionate moments, such as a card or a song. The darker "weakened" meaning belongs to the transitive verb.

3. 3
   verbfigurativelyintransitive

   To dissolve, disperse, or gradually vanish.

   The morning mist seemed to melt into the valley below.

   His anger melted the moment she apologized.

   Similardissolve, fade, vanish, evaporate, dissipate

   Note

   A figurative use that takes no object: troubles, moods and expressions simply fade. Its natural partner is away, as in his troubles melted away, which stresses the gradual going. Without it, the verb still suggests an easing rather than a sudden end, as in Davy Rothbart's 2008 line about a pained expression that "slowly melted". For a person moved to tenderness, use the "touched" sense instead.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process in which a solid substance turns into a liquid.

   The glacier's melt has accelerated over the past decade.

   Metallurgists timed the melt of the alloy precisely.

   Similarthaw

   Oppositefreeze

5. 5
   noununcountable

   Molten material produced by melting; the liquid result of a melting process.

   The foundry tapped the melt directly into the casting line.

   Impurities rose to the surface of the melt as it cooled.

   Note

   Geologists use the word freely for liquid rock, often in compounds. Chinle Miller's In Mesozoic Lands (2012) describes Earth's crust as made of "lighter melt products from the mantle". The noun is both countable and uncountable. It can name a single molten mass, as in the melt, or separate batches, as in melts.

6. 6
   verbfigurativelytransitive

   To soften someone through warmth or kindness; to make gentle, or sometimes to weaken their resolve.

   The general's flattery melted the loyalty of his rivals.

   Few things melt a parent's resistance faster than a child's tears.

   Similarsoften, weaken, disarm

   Oppositeharden, stiffen

   Note

   The literary, transitive figure, in which warmth or pity works on someone and softens them. It has a long poetic history. Dryden writes "pity melts the mind to love" (1687), and Tennyson writes "melt the waxen hearts of men" (1850). Shakespeare's Timon of Athens shows the darker side, where melting down youth means wasting its strength. Typical objects are the heart, the mind and someone's resolve.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A hot sandwich, typically filled or topped with cheese melted under heat.

   He grilled a classic patty melt with onions and Swiss cheese.

   Their lunch menu features a tuna melt on sourdough.

8. 8
   verbcolloquialintransitive

   To feel oppressively hot and sweat heavily.

   Tourists melt in the midday heat of the desert markets.

   By noon the whole crew was melting under the stage lights.

   Similarswelter, bake, roast, boil

   Oppositefreeze

9. 9
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The runoff produced when mountain snow thaws in spring.

   This year's melt came early, flooding the lower valleys.

   Reservoirs fill quickly once the melt begins in the high country.

   Similarthaw, runoff, meltwater

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A block of scented wax warmed in an oil burner instead of an oil-and-water mixture.

    He prefers wax melts to candles because there's no open flame.

    A single melt can scent a room for hours.

    Similartart

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