melee

noun

me·​lee ˈmā-ˌlā How to pronounce melee (audio)
mā-ˈlā
variants or less commonly mêlée
: a confused struggle
especially : a hand-to-hand fight among several people
They were seriously injured in the melee.

Did you know?

Melee Has French Roots

English has no shortage of words for confused and noisy fights, some (fray, brawl, scrap) more common than others (donnybrook, fracas). Melee tends to be encountered more often in written rather than spoken English, but it is far from obscure, and has seen increasing use especially in the context of video games featuring some form of hand-to-hand combat. Such games allow players to mix it up with all manner of rivals and baddies from the comfort and safety of their home, with mix being an especially apt word alongside melee: the latter comes from the French word mêlée, which in turn comes from the Old French verb mesler, meaning "to mix."

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 on the Web In the melee, a Filipino sailor’s thumb got sliced off by a sharp piece of metal. Marites Dañguilan Vitug, Foreign Affairs, 18 Sep. 2024 Comedy Central Website Shuttered, Decades of Daily Show and Colbert Report Clips Gone in a Blink The Daily Show went live 30 minutes after President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump left the CNN stage following a 90-minute, audience-free melee moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. Ryan Schwartz, TVLine, 27 June 2024 The melee followed Uruguay’s 1-0 loss to Colombia in a game in which emotions were already high. Rudy Chinchilla, NBC News, 11 July 2024 Three days before the multi-person melee, a Santa Monica man allegedly attacked three women at the beach, attempting to strangle a 17-year-old before assaulting and biting a woman who tried to come to her aid. Keri Blakinger, Los Angeles Times, 9 July 2024 See all Example Sentences for melee 

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'melee.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

French mêlée, from Old French meslee, from mesler to mix — more at meddle

First Known Use

circa 1648, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of melee was circa 1648

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Cite this Entry

“Melee.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/melee. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

Kids Definition

melee

noun
me·​lee ˈmā-ˌlā How to pronounce melee (audio)
mā-ˈlā
: a confused struggle
especially : a hand-to-hand fight among several people

More from Merriam-Webster on melee

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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