Smelte

Smelte is a verb found in several Scandinavian languages, most notably Norwegian and Danish, meaning to cause a solid substance to change into a liquid state when heated. It describes the physical process of melting ice, wax, metal, or other materials, and it is used in both everyday language and technical contexts. The infinitive forms are å smelte in Norwegian and at smelte in Danish, with normal conjugation patterns that vary by dialect and tense.

Usage extends beyond the literal, as smelte can also be employed metaphorically to describe things that loosen, blend, or unify, such as ideas, communities, or materials that fuse under pressure. In technical or scientific discourse, the term may appear alongside related concepts like melting point, phase transition, and the properties of molten substances.

In linguistic terms, smelte relates to cognate verbs in other North Germanic languages, such as Swedish smälta, which share a common root and similar meaning. The word is distinct from English uses of similar-sounding forms: smelt can refer to a small fish, and smelting denotes the metal-extraction process in English. As with many verbs across languages, exact forms and nuances depend on the specific language and region, and speakers may choose regional variants or dialectal spellings in informal use.

See also: melting, melting point, smelting, Swedish smälta.