melee

See also mêlée

English

Alternative forms

• mêlée

Etymology

Borrowed from French mêlée, from Old French meslee, feminine past participle of mesler (“to mix”), derived from Latin misceō (“mix”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /mɛˈleɪ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

melee (plural melees)

1. Hand-to-hand combat; mano a mano.
2. A naval or armor battle at an abnormally close range, extending even to disorganized crowds of people or traffic jams, using no ammunition.
3. A noisy or heated fight, argument or scrap
   • 2012 April 15, Phil McNulty, “Tottenham 1-5 Chelsea”, BBC:

     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.

Translations

Hand-to-hand combat. Mano-à-mano

• Arabic: شجار (ar)
• Danish: nærkamp
• Finnish: käsikähmä, lähitaistelu

• German: Nahkampf (de) m
• Portuguese: combate corpo-a-corpo (Brazil)
• Swedish: närstrid (sv) m, närkamp (sv) c

A naval or armor battle at an abnormally close range

• Danish: håndgemæng, sammenstød

• Serbo-Croatian: borba prsa u prsa (sh)

Verb

melee (third-person singular simple present melees, present participle meleeing, simple past and past participle meleed)

1. (video games, slang) to physically hit, as opposed to shooting or blowing up.