Did you mean mêlée?
Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Confused, hand-to-hand fighting in a pitched battle.
- n. A violent free-for-all. See Synonyms at brawl.
- n. A confused tumultuous mingling, as of a crowd: the rush-hour melee.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- French mêlée, from Old French meslee, past participle of mesler, to mix; see meddle.
Examples
“I'm finally getting around to leveling/playing a warlock myself (just hit 77 yesterday) and I must say turning into a demon and joining my axe wielding friend in melee is ever so much fun.”
"The lines of uncles dwindled, and the pirate stories stopped."
“We did at last contrive to do so; we invented what we call the melee, and our revised rules in the event of a melee will be found set out upon a later page.”
“Melee: Pistols may be used as saps and muskets as clubs in melee combat, but they are reasonably fragile and whenever you roll a natural 1 on the attack roll the weapon is broken.”
“Gears of War 2 seems to feature more giant enemies specializing in melee, like the Butcher who wields a giant machete.”
“Gahz'rilla gave us a run for our money, because of his habit of throwing the people who are in melee with him high up into the air and then taking out his rage on the mage or the priest.”
“The first thing we learned is that the head is so heavy (being chunkier than a battle-axe) that the thing is pretty useless in melee — it is just too unwieldy.”
“But by the time the melee is in full effect, everyone and everything on the screen is computer-generated - including the perspective of the camera itself, steering at 2,000 miles per hour and screaming through arcs that would tear any physical camera apart.”
“Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do at this point, as I am locked in melee with several other Liburnians and depeleted in crew.”
Galley Warfare: Roman Seas at Fall In! AAR on Repple Depple « Third Point of Singularity
“About 15 minutes later, two boys, ages 14 and 15, who were leaving a McDonald's restaurant, also in the 200 block of South State, encountered what police described as a melee -- perhaps the same one the other boy walked into -- and tried to get away, said Police Officer Laura Kubiak.”
The Huffington Post: Three Teens STABBED Near Taste Of Chicago, One Man Tased By Police
“Turns out one of those ejected from the ballpark in the melee was the husband of the woman who'd been occupying our seats when we arrived.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘melee’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Them's fightin' words
brannigan, fisticuffs, donnybrook, lambaste, fracas, fray, imbroglio, melee, squabble, quarrel, skirmish, stramash and 28 more...
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fight
words for fighting
bout, fight, match, smackdown, blue, stoush, battle, clash, fuss, fray, ruckus, tussle and 91 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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Words sung by: Belle and Sebastian
beguiling, herbaceous, peninsula, suffragette, damascan, hastening, berserk, overtime, leccy, bestow, swathe, arab strap and 193 more...
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Summers Vocab 1
Vocabulary for Mr. Summers.
melee, nexus, flippant, fiat, facile, euphemism, circuitous, cavalcade, perennial, surreptitious, discursive, cacophony
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Gygax's Glossary
In hesitant beginning of a tribute to the man who—before Nabokov or Joyce or anyone 1000 times more exalted—infected me with a fever for language.
psionic, prismatic, gelatinous, dweomer, initiative, kobold, geas, shambling, gibbering, cuirass, halberd, ioun stone and 4 more...
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French words to throw around next time you fee...
This list is endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Mimes, Jerry Lewis, and the Society for the Propagation of French Stereotypes.
bon mot, bon vivant, boulevardier, accoutrement, ménage à trois, melee, coup de grace, elan, bete noir, agent provocateur, crème de la crème, haut monde and 42 more...
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I Love These Words
onomatopoeia, aesthetics, culminating, oscitancy, propagate, kindergarchy, kipple, melee
telruen Melee
Additional usage:
Noun, Broadly Hand-to-hand combat (rare)
Adjective of or related to hand-to-hand combat
Examples sentences:
"I've been playing Arcanum a lot, my main character is a level 35 melee fighter technologist."
"Sulik from Fallout 2 is great at melee."
"I use many different melee weapons, but my favorite has to be the Super Sledgehammer."
"Jaheira from Baldur's Gate is a pretty decent melee character who can effectively facilitate her performance in hand-to-hand combat with her druid spells."
Note:
This usage has been around for more than 2 decades, usually in RPG video games, tabletop war games, some card games and as part of discussions related to these.
Many gamers (including ex-gamers) are familiar with this usage and would use the word "melee" this way. Oct 22, 2009
Prolagus The others were shocked at this shameful disgrace
At the end of an honoured career
He paused in the silence to pull down his tie
And observe the melee.
(Take your carriage clock and shove it, by Belle and Sebastian) Nov 13, 2008
seanahan This is one of those words that I don't know the preferred pronunciation so I will alternate between the two most common, unknowingly. Jan 9, 2008
reesetee Let's call the whole thing off. ;-> Jan 8, 2008
kewpid Some say mee-LEE, I say meh-LAY. Jan 8, 2008
mollusque Merriam Webster's Third International gives five pronunciations, so appropriately it's a free-for-all. Just don't pronounced it Millay, as in Edna St. Vincent. Jan 8, 2008
reesetee Is that an acute fling or a grave fling? ;-> Jan 8, 2008
chained_bear Any words that have accents and little pointy hats and other stuff are bound to lose those in the move to more common usage in English. We don't like us no pointy-hatted Franche words.
I can't say which is "more" or "less" correct. I was just wondering if anyone had listed the version with the accent on it--which I will now call a fling because that's the noise it makes in my brain when I write one--and then discovered that yeah, I listed it. *sheepish* Jan 8, 2008
reesetee I don't think it's a question of degree of correctness. It almost depends on which dictionary you're checking. Apparently several pronunciations are correct (according to several dictionaries).
C_b: I've also seen it as mêlée in some references. Jan 8, 2008
meleeman but which is more correct? Oddly, I think the French pronounciation emphasizes both syllables, which makes it sound like there is more emphasis on the second syllable (to our American ears). Jan 8, 2008
reesetee Why am I not surprised that you have stage-combat buddies, chained_bear? Jan 8, 2008
chained_bear All my stage-combat buddies say it the way I do: MEH-lay (or MAY-lay, if you have trouble imagining that).
Edit: Isn't it actually melée? (Not to be too much of a fussbudget.) Jan 8, 2008
breadheadted I pronounce it like may-lay but I know a lot of people who pronounce it mee-lee which just sounds plain wrong. Jan 8, 2008
meleeman how do you guys pronounce it? Jan 8, 2008
sonofgroucho Fight! Fight! Fight! Nov 23, 2007