Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To melt or fuse (ores) in order to separate the metallic constituents.
- v. To melt or fuse. Used of ores.
- n. Any of various small silvery marine and freshwater food fishes of the family Osmeridae, found in cold waters of the Northern Hemisphere, especially Osmerus mordax of North America and O. eperlanus of Europe.
- v. A past tense and a past participle of smell.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To fuse; melt; specifically, to treat (ore) in the large way, and chiefly in a furnace or by the aid of heat, for the purpose of separating the contained metal. Metallurgical operations carried on in the moist way, as the amalgamation of gold and silver ores in pans, treatment by lixiviation, etc., are not generally designated by the term smelting. Establishments where this is done are more commonly called mills or reduction-works, and those in which iron is smelted are usually designated as blast-furnaces or iron-furnaces. The various smelting operations differ greatly from each other, according to the nature of the combinations operated on. Simple ores, like galena, require only a very simple series of operations, which are essentially continuous in one and the same furnace; more complicated combinations, like the mixtures of various cupriferous ores smelted at Swansea by the English method, require several successive operations, entirely disconnected from each other, and performed in different furnaces. In the most general way, the essential order of succession of the various processes by which the sulphureted ores (and most ores are sulphurets) are treated is as follows:
- To fuse; melt; dissolve.
- n. Any one of various small fishes. A small fish of the family Argentinidæ and the genus Osmerus, The common European smelt is the sparling, O. eperlanus; it becomes about 10 to 12 inches long, and is of an olive-green above and a silvery white below, with a silver longitudinal lateral band. It exhales when fresh a peculiar scent suggesting the cucumber. This fish is prized as a delicacy. The corresponding American smelt is O. mordax, of the Atlantic coast from Virginia northward, anadromous to some extent, and otherwise very similar to the sparling. There are several true smelts of the Pacific coast of North America, as O. thaleichthys, the Californian smelts and O. dentex, the Alaska smelt.
- n. A gull; a simpleton.
Wiktionary
- n. Any small anadromous fish of the family Osmeridae, found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and in lakes in North America and northern part of Europe.
- v. Simple past tense and past participle of smell.
- n. Production of metal, especially iron, from ore in a process that involves melting and chemical reduction of metal compounds into purified metal.
- n. Any of the various liquids or semi-molten solids produced and used during the course of such production.
- v. to fuse two things into one, especially when involving ores; to meld
GNU Webster's 1913
- imp. & p. p. of smell.
- n. (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of small silvery salmonoid fishes of the genus Osmerus and allied genera, which ascend rivers to spawn, and sometimes become landlocked in lakes. They are esteemed as food, and have a peculiar odor and taste.
- n. obsolete A gull; a simpleton.
- v. (Metal.) To melt or fuse, as, ore, for the purpose of separating and refining the metal; hence, to reduce; to refine; to flux or scorify.
WordNet 3.0
- n. small cold-water silvery fish; migrate between salt and fresh water
- v. extract (metals) by heating
- n. small trout-like silvery marine or freshwater food fishes of cold northern waters
Etymologies
- Variant of the stem of Old English meltan ("to melt"), cognate with Dutch smelten and German schmelzen. (Wiktionary)
- Dutch or Low German smelten, from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German; see mel-1 in Indo-European roots.Middle English, from Old English; see mel-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Already the _Votaress's_ divine breath smelt of coffee, real coffee -- _chaud comme l'enfer et noir comme le diable -- smelt_ of it, as, we fear, we shall never smell it again in this trust-ridden world.”
“The delta smelt is a handy whipping boy for the likes of Rep. Devin Nunes, who has tried to suspend the ESA to prevent what he calls a “government imposed dust bowl.””
Wonk Room » California Republicans Will Use Any Excuse Other Than Climate Change To Explain Drought
“Orange and black super smelt is the one of choice.”
“I have caught pike thru the ice using dressed smelt from the grocery store because they were oily and had "fragrance".”
“Solomonic (?) description is very correct; the shrub affects vineyards, and about Bombay forms fine hedges which can be smelt from a distance.”
“When he turned the tables by talking of slander, loss of time, and compensation, Daddy Darwin smelt money, and tremblingly whispered to Master Shaw to apologise and get out of it.”
“But the smelt is only a symptom of the collapse of one of America’s most important ecosystems, a collapse that has been building for decades and affects not just the smelt, but salmon, steelhead and about 750 other species of fish, birds and animals – 18 of which are designated as threatened or endangered by the state and federal governments.”
Wonk Room » California Republicans Will Use Any Excuse Other Than Climate Change To Explain Drought
“Weight: ¼ oz. Details: This lure best resembles a rainbow smelt, which is a main food source for our walleye.”
“Maybe the smelt were a little too adventurous for me, so we ordered teba wings and sautéed mushrooms.”
“Every word smelt of the meadowsweet that grew thick upon the banks; now, as he recalled the cadence and the phrase that had seemed so charming, he saw again the ferns beneath the vaulted roots of the beech, and the green light of the glowworm in the hedge.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘smelt’.
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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 4087 more...
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fish list
lots and lots of fish, a piscatorial
wetdreamablet, agnathan, ahi, ahuru, ahuruhuru, albacore, albicore, alec, alewife, allice, allis, amberjack and 840 more...
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animals (1 syllable)
A list of common animal names. Keep the list to 1 syllable words.No scientific names. No proper names like 'Fluffy' the elephant.Insects and other creatures (even ficticious) are welcome!You can ...
dog, cat, bear, bee, ass, ape, horse, squid, bug, hare, hawk, pig and 138 more...
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PECH - marine species
African cuttlefish, Alaska plaice, Alaska pollock, Alaska pollack, walleye pollock, alewife, gaspereau, river herring, sawbelly, allis shad, American angler, goosefish and 994 more...
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Steampunk
Words used quite often in steampunk
ansible, airship, chymical, valve, clockwork, dirigible, thaumaturgy, copper, bronze, difference engine, gear, rivets and 521 more...
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Metallics
Words that relate to or describe metals.
malleable, ductile, shiny, steely, brassy, dull, golden, precious, smelt, smith, tensile, clink and 39 more...
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Past tense in -t.
Some words are always like this. Some only when British or archaic. Some are just fun.
built, spent, bent, spilt, spoilt, ruint, thought, caught, brought, wisht, pent, spelt and 74 more...
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GRE Passage Words
admonish, ephemeral, ambivalence, antipathy, antithetical, countenance, deride, eclectic, enigma, ethos, expediency, impinge and 15 more...
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Salmon
All salmon all the time!
Also see asativium's excellent Salmon I am list.salmon, Salmon, Salmon of Knowledge, the Salmon of Lly..., chinook salmon, kipper, spent fish, foul fish, kelts, kelt, shedder, baggit and 70 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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Alaska
Names of places, animals, plants, people, etc. found in and around Alaska.
koyukon, chinook, coho, sockeye, king salmon, chum, dog salmon, kipper, kelt, baggit, samlet, parr and 225 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Tuesday words
just the next words that come along
nasality, transignification, lapsarian, disciple, slanguage, atwitter, avast, ahoy, asleep, awake, hymnody, glissade and 573 more...
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Interesting Foods
smelt, sprat, caviar, sushi, papadum, garlic naan, injera, doro wat, miso, pho, edamame, tataki and 170 more...
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Favorite Five-Letter Words
Just what it sounds like. My favorites. Five letters.
ennui, barfy, samba, schwa, beefy, chunk, queef, spasm, skulk, bowel, elbow, fruit and 235 more...
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norrell's Words
hush, dove, euphoria, nebulae, bryn mawr, darling, phoenix, nape, cream, butterscotch, cosmos, frost and 190 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for smelt.

hernesheir "The smelt is the garden warbler of the water; the same smallness, the same high flavour, the same superiority," - French gastronome Brillat-Savarin Sep 24, 2009
rolig There's something fishy about this word. Jan 17, 2009
john “While there is some debate about the best inaugural address in history, it’s pretty clear that the worst was the one delivered by William Henry Harrison, who went thwacking through a tangled thicket of classical allusions for an hour and 45 minutes. (Harrison’s editor, Daniel Webster, claimed it could have been worse, and that he had killed off ‘seventeen Roman proconsuls, as dead as smelts.’)�?
The New York Times, Imagining the Inaugural, by Gail Collins, January 16, 2009 Jan 17, 2009
uselessness "He who smelt it, dealt it."
"He who made the rhyme, did the crime." Jul 13, 2007
reesetee 4) One of the types of fishes you're forced to eat on Christmas Eve if you're part of an Italian family. See squid, calamari. ;-) Jul 13, 2007
arby 1) The chemical process of smelting;
2) A number of small, silver breeds of fish;
3) The past tense of smell. Jul 13, 2007