Word of the Day : June 2, 2022

meld

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verb MELD

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What It Means

Meld means "to blend or mix together."

//The sauce cooks slowly, allowing the flavors to meld together.

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meld in Context

"The community art event, which came at the tail-end of National Poetry Month, melded games and art together to present poetry as an inclusive and demographically accessible expressive art, according to the event’s organizer, Rachel Cyrene Blackman." — Emily Thurlow, The Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Massachusetts), 1 May 2022

Did You Know?

As a verb used when things are blending or being blended together, meld dates only to the first half of the 20th century. In its early days, the word attracted some unfavorable attention. Those who didn't like it tended to perceive it as a misuse of an older meld meaning "to declare or announce (a card or cards) for a score in a card game" (such as pinochle or gin rummy). But the more recent meld, a blend of melt and weld, was an entirely new coinage suggesting a smooth and thorough blending of two or more things into a single, homogeneous whole. The word is no longer controversial.