melee
Part of speech: noun
verb
adj
Morphological type: simple
Topics: games
gaming
government
military
politics
video-games
war
Etymology: Borrowed from French mêlée, from Old French meslee, feminine past participle of mesler (“to mix”), derived from Latin misceō (“mix”). Doublet of medley.
Inflected forms:
form: melees
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: mêlée
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: melée
pos: noun
tags: alternative
rare
form: melees
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: meleeing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: meleed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: meleed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: mêlée
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: melée
pos: verb
tags: alternative
rare
form: mêlée
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: melée
pos: adj
tags: alternative
rare
Senses:
gloss: A battle fought at close range, (especially) one not involving ranged weapons; hand-to-hand combat; brawling.
pos: noun
tags: countable
especially
uncountable
examples: Honestly, a lot of what this episode did right had more to do with the scenes that surrounded the enormous melee than those hyper-edited clashes of swords.
The attack also afforded Helena to a front-seat view of literal air-to-air melee combat, as one Wildcat pilot of the Cactus Air Force, who was swooping in to help break up the attack, found himself out of machine-gun ammo; instead, he dropped his landing gear, positioned himself above the nearest bomber, and begun beating it to death, in midair, using his landing gear as clubs. After a bit of evasive action that the fighter easily kept up with, the repeated slamming broke something important, and the bomber spiralled down into the sea.
gloss: A loud, confused or tumultuous fight, argument or scrap.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The ball did not appear to cross the line, a view supported by television replays as Blues captain John Terry also joined the melee, but referee Atkinson awarded the goal - to the obvious anger of Spurs and their management team.
Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver said Tuesday that the federal assault charges filed against her a day earlier related to a chaotic melee outside an Immigration Customs and Enforcement detention facility are “absurd.”
gloss: Any confused, disorganised, disordered or chaotic situation.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Within this melee of intersections between English and Cantonese, the students, being themselves bilingually fluent, were able to navigate with perfect ease in communicative contexts where the provenance of a certain term or expression matters little.
gloss: Lively contention or debate, skirmish.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A cavalry exercise in which two groups of riders try to cut paper plumes off the helmets of their opponents, the contest continuing until no member of one group retains his plume.
pos: noun
tags: countable
historical
uncountable
gloss: Small cut and polished gemstones sold in lots.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The video game Super Smash Bros. Melee.
pos: noun
tags: capitalized
countable
uncountable
usually
gloss: To physically hit in close quarters, as opposed to shooting, blowing up, or other ranged means of damage. Often refers to the usage of a hand-to-hand weapon.
pos: verb
tags: slang
gloss: Of a weapon: used in close-range combat, e.g. a sword. Compare with ranged.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: A melee weapon is used to attack a target within 5 feet of you, whereas a ranged weapon is used to attack a target at a distance.
gloss: Of a character, using melee weapons.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
Translations: