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Definition of melee
: a confused struggle; especially : a hand-to-hand fight among several people They were seriously injured in the melee.
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Examples of melee in a Sentence
a verbal disagreement at the football game soon turned into a general melee involving scores of spectators
Recent Examples of melee from the Web
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A third person was injured in the melee, Meltzer said.
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Soon enough, Thrones devolves into an all-out melee that makes the Wars of the Roses look like Family Feud.
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Two Iredell County men were among the unlucky bystanders caught up in that Myrtle Beach melee that was broadcast on Facebook Live Sunday.
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However, sources said the melee involved more than 20 inmates, many of them members of gangs.
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At the Moscow fair, organized by a reenactment company called Times and Epochs, dozens of (model) melee weapons were in place: halberds and pikes, hammers and wooden shields, fencing foils and tank traps.
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The second of three women charged in a Mansfield melee over a man that left a woman with a minor gunshot wound to the head has pleaded guilty.
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As LeBron James exited the court following a loss in Game 2 of the NBA Finals, fans watching on national television were treated to a small melee between fans crowding near the tunnel.
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This triggered the biggest Major League Baseball melee since a 2010 donnybrook between the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'melee'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
melee Has French Roots
Fray, "donnybrook," "brawl," "fracas": there are many English words for confused and noisy fights, and in the 17th century "melee" was thrown into the mix. It comes from the French melee, which in turn comes from the Old French meslee, meaning "mixture." "Meslee" comes from the Old French verb mesler, or "medler," which means "to mix." This verb is also the source of "medley" ("a mixture or hodgepodge") and "meddle" ("to mix oneself in others' affairs" or "to interfere").
Origin and Etymology of melee
French mêlée, from Old French meslee, from mesler to mix — more at meddle
MELEE Defined for English Language Learners
melee
playDefinition of melee for English Language Learners
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: a confused struggle or fight involving many people
Learn More about melee
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See words that rhyme with melee Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for melee Spanish Central: Translation of melee Nglish: Translation of melee for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of melee for Arabic speakers Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about melee
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