Wordul · all words

noun · 2 syllables · /ˈmeɪleɪ/

MELEE

What does "MELEE" mean?

A confused, disorganized fight or struggle involving many people at close quarters.

Meanings

  1. A chaotic hand-to-hand fight among a crowd of people, with no clear order. A bench-clearing melee broke out after the late hit.
  2. A confused, jostling mass or muddle of people or things. We lost each other in the melee at the station exit.

Did you know?

  • A 'melee', a 'medley', and to 'meddle' are linguistic siblings: all three trace back to the Latin 'misculare', 'to mix' - a brawl, a song, and a busybody, all just different kinds of mixing.

Word origin

From French 'mêlée', from 'mêler' (to mix), from Latin 'misculare' (to mix); the same root gives English 'meddle' and 'medley'.

Remember it

MELEE comes from French 'mêler', to mix - picture a tangled E-E knot of bodies all mixed together.

A little poem

No front line, no plan-
just elbows, dust, and shouting,
each man his own war.

haiku

Wordplay

  • The chaos and the song accused each other of starting trouble. Turns out melee and medley were related all along - both just a way of mixing things up.

What it teaches

In a melee everyone fights everyone and no one wins; chaos rewards the side that keeps a line.

Quick facts

What does MELEE mean?

A confused, disorganized fight or struggle involving many people at close quarters.

Is MELEE a valid word?

Yes — MELEE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.

How many letters is MELEE?

MELEE has 5 letters and 2 syllables.

Where does MELEE come from?

From French 'mêlée', from 'mêler' (to mix), from Latin 'misculare' (to mix); the same root gives English 'meddle' and 'medley'.

What can MELEE teach us?

In a melee everyone fights everyone and no one wins; chaos rewards the side that keeps a line.

How players do

Be the first to solve it.

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