smelt.
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.
Meaning & usage
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.
A fool; a simpleton.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)meld- Proto-Indo-European *(s)méldeti Proto-Germanic *smeltaną Proto-Germanic *smeltaz Proto-West Germanic *smelt Old English smelt Middle English smelt English smelt From Middle English smelt, from Old English smelt, from Proto-West Germanic *smelt, from Proto-Germanic *smeltaz.
Production of metal, especially iron, from ore in a process that involves heating and chemical reduction of metal compounds into purified metal.
Any of the various liquids or semi-molten solids produced and used during the course of such production.
Where this word comes from
From Middle Dutch smelten (“to melt”) or Middle Low German smelten (“to melt”), from Old Dutch *smeltan or Old Saxon smeltan, both from Proto-West Germanic *smeltan, from Proto-Germanic *smeltaną (“to melt”). Related to English melt and Old English meltan (“to melt”). Cognate to Dutch smelten, German schmelzen.
To produce metal, especially iron, from ore in a process that involves heating and chemical reduction of metal compounds into purified metal.
Where this word comes from
From Middle Dutch smelten (“to melt”) or Middle Low German smelten (“to melt”), from Old Dutch *smeltan or Old Saxon smeltan, both from Proto-West Germanic *smeltan, from Proto-Germanic *smeltaną (“to melt”). Related to English melt and Old English meltan (“to melt”). Cognate to Dutch smelten, German schmelzen.
simple past and past participle of smell
Where this word comes from
From very early Middle English smelte; likely to derive from Old English, but not recorded.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.