What's the difference between battle and melee?

Battle


Definition:

  • (a.) Fertile. See Battel, a.
  • (v. t.) A general action, fight, or encounter, in which all the divisions of an army are or may be engaged; an engagement; a combat.
  • (v. t.) A struggle; a contest; as, the battle of life.
  • (v. t.) A division of an army; a battalion.
  • (v. t.) The main body, as distinct from the van and rear; battalia.
  • (n.) To join in battle; to contend in fight; as, to battle over theories.
  • (v. t.) To assail in battle; to fight.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Are you ready to vote?” is the battle cry, and even the most superficial of glances at the statistics tells why.
  • (2) It happens to anyone and everyone and this has been an 11-year battle.” Emergency services were called to the oval about 6.30pm to treat Luke for head injuries, but were unable to revive him.
  • (3) Alternatively, try the Hawaii Fish O nights, every Friday from 26 July until the end of August, featuring a one-hour paddleboard lesson, followed by a fish-and-chip supper looking out over the waves you've just battled (£16.75).
  • (4) The grand patriarch, battling dissent and delusion, coming in for another shot, a new king on the throne, an impossible future to face down.
  • (5) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (6) Silvio Berlusconi's government is battling to stay in the eurozone against mounting odds – not least the country's mountain of state debt, which is the largest in the single currency area.
  • (7) His greatest legacy, besides his three children, is the joy and happiness he offered to others, particularly to those fighting personal battles.
  • (8) The cost-cutting shakeup is being overseen by NHS England, but is already sparking a series of local political battles over the future of services, and exposes the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to fresh criticism after his controversial role in the junior doctors dispute.
  • (9) Thatcher made changes to the UK's tax system, some changes to welfare, and many to the nature of British jobs, both through privatisation and economic liberalisation – not least in her battle with the unions.
  • (10) Customers won a significant victory in the battle with the banks earlier this month when a mass hearing was averted at Hull county court.
  • (11) Pauline Cafferkey, the Scottish nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone in 2014, has described the pain of battling the virus inside a hospital isolation unit.
  • (12) Campbell's assessment came the day after a United Nations report found that ground battles between Afghan forces and the Taliban insurgents had overtaken insurgent bombs as a leading cause of civilian deaths and injuries .
  • (13) After weeks of battling both in the press and in Albany’s back rooms, $300m was allotted in the state budget to fund pre-K in New York City.
  • (14) This is not some sophisticated, Westminstery battle, but a life-and-death, misery-or-decency choice about the very basics of life for hundreds of thousands of older British people.
  • (15) Donald Trump and the 'war on women': GOP confident mogul will lose the battle Read more Governor Scott Walker, who recently signed a restrictive 20-week abortion ban in Wisconsin , also opposes abortion without exceptions and has said voters agree, though polls tell a different story.
  • (16) Ernst had adopted conservative positions during the primary battle: she called the president a dictator and said the Environmental Protection Agency should be abolished.
  • (17) It's almost starting to feel like we're back in the good old days of July 2005, when Paris lost out to London in the battle to stage the 2012 Olympic Games, a defeat immediately interpreted by France as a bitter blow to Gallic ideals of fair play and non-commercialism and yet another undeserved triumph for the underhand, free-market manoeuvrings of perfidious Albion.
  • (18) Russia has stepped up its battle against parmesan cheese, Danish bacon and other European delicacies, announcing it plans to incinerate contraband shipments on the border as soon as they are discovered.
  • (19) "My wonderful, brave and adored father, Jack Ashley, Lord Ashley of Stoke, has died after a short battle with pneumonia."
  • (20) Quiet crisis: why battle to prop up Italy's banks is vital to EU stability Read more The country’s third-largest lender has already been bailed out twice in modern Italian history but is likely to need a third multibillion-euro intervention by the Italian government – a move that would need Brussels to break new rules designed to prevent such taxpayer bailouts after the 2008 global financial crisis.

Melee


Definition:

  • (n.) A fight in which the combatants are mingled in one confused mass; a hand to hand conflict; an affray.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The original referred to Meles Zenawi as president of Ethiopia.
  • (2) Meles Zenawi , the cerebral ruler of Ethiopia for the last 21 years, is a man with many reputations.
  • (3) August 1995 After poorly contested elections, the EPRDF swept to power; the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was proclaimed, and Meles became Ethiopia's first prime minister.
  • (4) Meles introduced a controversial form of ethnic nationalism and, from 1998-2000, went to war with neighbouring Eritrea, a conflict that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
  • (5) Some analysts have claimed that Meles will not return to power at all, after a senior member of the TPLF, Sibhat Nega, stated that the party was working on a power succession and that the regime could continue in the event of "individuals" dying or leaving the government.
  • (6) There have been a flurry of searches and social media interactions on the fate of Meles by Ethiopians – including a popular #WhereIsMeles hashtag on twitter, but his absence from government is of concern to donors, who pump almost $4bn (£2.6bn) of aid into Ethiopia every year.
  • (7) Two months later, an interim government was formed with Meles as transitional president.
  • (8) When it sounded the United goalkeeper leapt to his feet and grabbed Martin Skrtel, sparking a post-match melee, before collapsing in pain once again.
  • (9) True enough, the driving force behind the dam is former prime minister Meles Zenawi , who ran the country for more than two decades.
  • (10) The broadcast said Meles died just before midnight on Monday after contracting an infection.
  • (11) In the ensuing melee, Giles described Westra van Holthe as not having the “capacity, capability or the tenacity or the professionalism to be the chief minister”.
  • (12) At the same time, however, Meles's clampdown on dissent – particularly in the media, among civil society groups and from opposition politicians – has caused widespread discontent, especially in urban centres.
  • (13) Meles had not been seen in public for about two months.
  • (14) crescens) was demonstrated as the causative agent in 5 cases of disease-in the badger (Meles meles), the otter (Lutra lutra) and the fox (Vulpes vulpes).
  • (15) As any graduate will remember, those years at university were just as much about juggling a melee of friendships as it was about studying.
  • (16) The result meant a fourth term as prime minister for Meles, but human rights groups questioned the poll's validity, citing reported irregularities .
  • (17) On the vexed issue of longer term finance, the Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi presented an offer to reduce developing country demands by 75% to $100bn a year from 2020, in return for guarantees of how the money would be distributed.
  • (18) One plan from the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, sets out how developed countries could scale up their funding to $50bn by 2015 and $100bn by 2020.
  • (19) Meles, now 57, came to power in 1991 after his Tigray People's Liberation Front waged a successful war, alongside the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, that toppled the dictatorship of the Soviet-backed Mengistu Haile Mariam.
  • (20) However, Meles had begun a generational shift in the EPRDF’s leadership, bringing new leaders to the fore – including Hailemariam as his deputy – in the two years preceding his death.