MEANING
A confused, uncontrolled crowd or struggle in which people jostle or fight in different directions.
Use it for
describing a fight with no clear individual contest; showing confusion in a tightly packed crowd; distinguishing a chaotic struggle from an orderly confrontationDescribes confused, uncontrolled close movement or fighting involving several people, not merely a disagreement. Writing functions: Conflict / Movement.
Words that belong together
- a confused melee
- in the melee
- a melee breaks out
On the page
In the melee, she lost the hand she had been holding.
A melee broke out beside the stalled carriage, hiding the doorway from view.
Word forms
- Base
- melee
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Usage notes
Count noun: melee; plural melees. Also written mêlée; accent variation is not another entry. Usually a melee or in the melee. Register: literary. Commonness: moderately common in narrative and reporting (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
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