Melted

How to spell melted

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce melted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does melted mean?

1. verbTurned from a solid into a liquid through heat, or caused something to do so.
2. adjectiveHaving been reduced to a soft or liquid state by heat.

Melted in a sentence

• verb

  The ice cream melted in the heat before they reached home.

• adjective

  He poured the melted chocolate over the warm cake.

• verb

  She melted the butter slowly in a small pan.

• adjective

  The sandwich was filled with melted cheese.

Where does melted come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from the Old English verb meltan, meaning 'to become liquid' or 'to dissolve', which described solid matter softening into a fluid state. It belongs to a wide family of Germanic words and is ultimately related to an ancient root meaning 'soft' that also gave us 'mild' and 'mellow'. For centuries the verb had strong forms, much like 'help' once gave 'holp'; over time it settled into the regular pattern, taking the ordinary -ed ending to form 'melted'. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, with the t and the d both sounded, so the main thing to remember is simply the single t before the -ed. The same root also lies behind 'smelt', the act of melting ore to extract metal, which preserves the older sense in a specialised trade.

How the word is built

• melt (from Old English meltan, to dissolve)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)