melt

verb

1. (ergative)To change (or to be changed) from a solid state to a liquid state, usually by a gradual heat.

   “I melted butter to make a cake.”

   “When the weather is warm, the snowman will disappear; he will melt.”

2. (figuratively, intransitive)To dissolve, disperse, vanish.

   “His troubles melted away.”

   “I gave him a couple of Advil and, after a few minutes, urged him back onto the track. Over the next few laps his pained expression slowly melted, although he still shuffled with a slight limp.”

3. (ambitransitive, figuratively)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.”

   “For pity melts the mind to love.”

   “The traveller hears me now and then, ⁠And sometimes harshly will he speak: ⁠‘This fellow would make weakness weak, And melt the waxen hearts of men.’”

   “He was very dubious at first, but I believe the fellow is genuine in his attachment to the house. His final scruple melted when he learned that I should not require him to sit up with me.”

4. (intransitive)To be discouraged.
5. (figuratively, intransitive)To be emotionally softened or touched.

   “She melted when she saw the romantic message in the Valentine's Day card.”

   “My heart melted when I first heard the song.”

6. (colloquial, intransitive)To be very hot and sweat profusely.

   “I need shade! I'm melting!”

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Molten material, the product of melting.

   “The crust (a mere 1% of the Earth's volume) is made of lighter melt products from the mantle.”

   “Users can see how a glacier at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania retreated between December 1986 and 2020, as well as glacial melt in Sermersooq, Greenland, between December 2000 and 2020.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The transition of matter from a solid state to a liquid state.
3. (countable, uncountable)The springtime snow runoff in mountain regions.
4. (countable, uncountable)A melt sandwich.

   “I recently asked a group of people whether they had eaten tuna melts as a kid. Everyone remembered a version of this dish.”

5. (countable, uncountable)Rock showing evidence of having been remelted after it originally solidified.

   “Numerous samples of breccia and impact melts were recovered by drilling into the floor of the crater.”

6. (countable, uncountable)A wax-based substance for use in an oil burner as an alternative to mixing oils and water.
7. (UK, countable, derogatory, slang, uncountable)A soft, soppy, or overly emotional person.

   “You are from Blackburn you fucking melt...have a bastard word with yourself.”

   “Kiss it ya melt!”

   “LOL! you fucking melt. Get a job.”

   “Over the course of this chapter on 'Love Island Essentials' we'll be charting exactly who went with who, showing you around the villa, and equipping you with the vocabulary you'll need to avoid looking like a melt and get grafting like a true Islander.”

8. (UK, countable, derogatory, slang, uncountable)A centre-left or liberal person, when in opposition to a leftist; (especially) a critic of Jeremy Corbyn within the Labour Party.

   “Anyone who said different was a Tory, a melt or – worse – a Blairite. Centrists (mostly Labour voters) were the devil incarnate.”

   “They developed their own lexicon, with Corbyn critics referred to as 'melts' or 'slugs' while their man was lauded as 'the absolute boy'.”

9. (countable, uncountable)Variant spelling of milt, the semen of a male fish, used as food.

   “A mass of herring melts, tinged with the streams of claret, had fallen into his hair, and this, added to his temporary stupor, had led to the Doctor's mistake.”

10. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, uncountable)Acronym of metrics, events, logs, and traces.

    “Another way to describe APM suites is that they are the monitoring technology that makes MELT data collection possible and useful for SREs.”