Word Direct Answers

What does "melt" mean?

Melt: To reduce from a solid to a liquid state, as by heat; to liquefy; as, to mell wax, tallow, or lead; to melt ice or snow.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Hence: To soften, as by a warming or kindly influence; to relax; to render gentle or susceptible to mild influences; sometimes, in a bad sense, to take away the firmness of; to weaken. Thou would'st have . . . melted down thy youth. Shak. For pity melts the mind to love. Dryden.
  2. 3.To be changed from a solid to a liquid state under the influence of heat; as, butter and wax melt at moderate temperatures.
  3. 4.To dissolve; as, sugar melts in the mouth.
  4. 5.Hence: To be softened; to become tender, mild, or gentle; also, to be weakened or subdued, as by fear. My soul melteth for heaviness. Ps. cxix.
  5. 6.Melting with tenderness and kind compassion. Shak.
  6. 7.To lose distinct form or outline; to blend. The soft, green, rounded hills, with their flowing outlines, overlapping and melting into each other. J. C. Shairp.
  7. 8.To disappear by being dispersed or dissipated; as, the fog melts away. Shak.

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