melt down
verb
Simple meaning
To have a breakdown.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mehltdownSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmɛltˈdaʊn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitivefiguratively
To have a breakdown; to collapse or fail utterly.
intransitive
To lose structure by being heated to a molten state.
transitive
To melt fully, especially metal or glass so that it can be remade into something else.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To have a breakdown; to collapse or fail utterly.
Used this way, melt down is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to have a breakdown
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Antonyms
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.