- melt´er
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–v.t.1. to change from a solid to a liquid by applying heat: »
to melt ice or butter. Great heat melts iron.
2. to dissolve: »to melt sugar in water.
3. Figurative. to cause to disappear gradually; disperse: »The noon sun will melt away the fog. These our actors…were all spirits, and Are melted into air (Shakespeare).
4. Figurative. to change very gradually; blend; merge: »Dusk melted the colors of the hill into a soft gray.
–v.i.1. to be changed from a solid to a liquid by applying heat: »The ice on the sidewalks had melted in the sunshine.
2. to dissolve; appear to disintegrate: »Sugar melts in water.
3. Figurative. to disappear gradually; vanish; disappear: »The clouds melted away, and the sun came out. The crowd melted away.
5. Figurative. to change very gradually; blend; merge: »In the rainbow, the green melts into blue, the blue into violet.
6. Figurative. to become softened; be made gentle; soften: »I had a good deal melted towards our enemy (Robert Louis Stevenson).
7. to suffer from the heat: »You will melt if you sit so close to the fire.
8. Obsolete. to be overwhelmed by grief.–n.1. the act or process of melting.2. the state of being melted.3. a melted metal.4. a quantity of metal melted at one operation or over a specified period, especially a single charge in smelting: »A number of melters using both pig iron and scrap have begun to use more pig iron in their melt (Baltimore Sun).
╂[fusion of Old English meltan to melt, and mieltan make liquid]–melt´er, noun.–melt´ing|ly, adverb.Synonym Study transitive verb.1, 2 Melt, dissolve, thaw, fuse mean to change from a solid state. Melt suggests either a gradual change caused by heat, by which a solid softens, loses shape, and finally becomes liquid (»The warm air melted the butter
) or the change of a solid going into solution in a liquid composed of another substance and becoming a part of it (»The lump of sugar melted in the cup of coffee
). Dissolve also has both these meanings, although the second is far more frequent: »The candle dissolved into a pool of wax as it burned. Dissolve some salt in a glass of water.
Thaw, used only of frozen things, means to change to the unfrozen state, either liquid or less hard and stiff: »She thawed the frozen fruit.
Fuse means to reduce a solid substance to a fluid state by subjecting it to a high temperature and is used especially of the blending together of metals into a combination which persists when they again solidify: »to fuse copper and tin.
Useful english dictionary. 2012.
