melt 1
— meltable , adj. — meltability , n. — meltingly , adv. — meltingness , n.
/melt/ , v. , melted, melted or molten, melting , n.
v.i.
1. to become liquefied by warmth or heat, as ice, snow, butter, or metal.
2. to become liquid; dissolve: Let the cough drop melt in your mouth.
3. to pass, dwindle, or fade gradually (often fol. by away ): His fortune slowly melted away.
4. to pass, change, or blend gradually (often fol. by into ): Night melted into day.
5. to become softened in feeling by pity, sympathy, love, or the like: The tyrant's heart would not melt.
6. Obs. to be subdued or overwhelmed by sorrow, dismay, etc.
v.t.
7. to reduce to a liquid state by warmth or heat; fuse: Fire melts ice.
8. to cause to pass away or fade.
9. to cause to pass, change, or blend gradually.
10. to soften in feeling, as a person or the heart.
n.
11. the act or process of melting; state of being melted.
12. something that is melted.
13. a quantity melted at one time.
14. a sandwich or other dish topped with melted cheese: a tuna melt.
[ bef. 900; ME melten, OE meltan (intrans.), m ( i ) elten (transit.) to melt, digest; c. ON melta to digest, Gk méldein to melt ]
Syn. 1. MELT, DISSOLVE, FUSE, THAW imply reducing a solid substance to a liquid state. TO MELT is to bring a solid to a liquid condition by the agency of heat: to melt butter. DISSOLVE, though sometimes used interchangeably with MELT, applies to a different process, depending upon the fact that certain solids, placed in certain liquids, distribute their particles throughout the liquids: A greater number of solids can be dissolved in water and in alcohol than in any other liquids.
TO FUSE is to subject a solid (usually a metal) to a very high temperature; it applies esp. to melting or blending metals together: Bell metal is made by fusing copper and tin. TO THAW is to restore a frozen substance to its normal (liquid, semiliquid, or more soft and pliable) state by raising its temperature above the freezing point: Sunshine will thaw ice in a lake. 4. dwindle. 10. gentle, mollify, relax.
melt 2
/melt/ , n.
the spleen, esp. that of a cow, pig, etc.
Also, milt .
[ 1575-85; var. of MILT ]