melt

UK/mɛlt/US/mɛlt/

verbB12 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #2,999 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: melting, melted, melts

To melt is to turn from solid to liquid in heat, as butter does in a pan. Melt the chocolate, the snow melted, melted cheese.

In cooking, melting is a technique with rules — chocolate melts over water rather than direct heat, and butter melts before it browns. Melt away means to disappear gradually: the crowd melted away. Of a person, melt means to soften emotionally: my heart melted. Note meltdown, both the nuclear accident and the informal word for losing control; and melting pot, meaning a place where different peoples mix.

Definitions of melt

1verbmeltTo turn from solid to liquid in heat.B1
“The butter melted before the pan was properly hot.”
- Said"Melt the chocolate slowly or it goes grainy. Trust me."
- WrittenThe butter melted on the hot toast and ran into every hole before she could catch it.
- UsedMelt over a bowl of steaming water, never directly in the pan.
- ContrastMelt, not boil. Melting turns a solid into a liquid; boiling makes a liquid bubble. boil →
- Not thisSugar dissolving in tea is not melting. Melting needs heat and a hard thing: cheese, wax, gold.
- SimplyThe snow melts in the sun. Now it is wet.
Patternmelt + noun (butter, chocolate, cheese) · melt in the mouth · melted cheese · melting point
2verbdisappearTo disappear or soften gradually.B2
“The crowd melted away within about ten minutes.”

melt is a turning to liquid.

Remember it

MELT → the snowman turning into a pool

The sun comes out, and by lunch the snowman is a pool of water with a hat and two stones lying in it.

Where it comes from

Old English meltan is Germanic and related to mild and to Greek meldein. The root idea is softening rather than liquefying, which is why the emotional sense sits so naturally on the word.

Proto-Indo-European
*(s)meld- — melt
Proto-Germanic
*meltaną
Proto-West Germanic
*meltan
Old English
meltan
Middle English
melten
English, today
melt

From Middle English melten, from a merger of Old English meltan (intransitive) and mieltan (transitive), both meaning “to melt, digest,” from Proto-West Germanic meltan and maltijan, from Proto-Germanic meltaną and maltijaną, both from Proto-Indo-European (s)meld- (“melt”). Cognate with Icelandic melta (“to digest”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Definitions of melt

1verbmeltTo turn from solid to liquid in heat.B1

“The butter melted before the pan was properly hot.”

Said"Melt the chocolate slowly or it goes grainy. Trust me."
WrittenThe butter melted on the hot toast and ran into every hole before she could catch it.
UsedMelt over a bowl of steaming water, never directly in the pan.
ContrastMelt, not boil. Melting turns a solid into a liquid; boiling makes a liquid bubble. boil →
Not thisSugar dissolving in tea is not melting. Melting needs heat and a hard thing: cheese, wax, gold.
SimplyThe snow melts in the sun. Now it is wet.

Patternmelt + noun (butter, chocolate, cheese) · melt in the mouth · melted cheese · melting point

2verbdisappearTo disappear or soften gradually.B2

“The crowd melted away within about ten minutes.”

melt is a turning to liquid.