(v.) To reduce from a solid to a liquid state, as by heat; to liquefy; as, to melt wax, tallow, or lead; to melt ice or snow.
(v.) Hence: To soften, as by a warming or kindly influence; to relax; to render gentle or susceptible to mild influences; sometimes, in a bad sense, to take away the firmness of; to weaken.
(v. i.) To be changed from a solid to a liquid state under the influence of heat; as, butter and wax melt at moderate temperatures.
(v. i.) To dissolve; as, sugar melts in the mouth.
(v. i.) Hence: To be softened; to become tender, mild, or gentle; also, to be weakened or subdued, as by fear.
(v. i.) To lose distinct form or outline; to blend.
(v. i.) To disappear by being dispersed or dissipated; as, the fog melts away.
Example Sentences:
(1) We’re learning to store peak power in all kinds of ways: a California auction for new power supply was won by a company that uses extra solar energy to freeze ice, which then melts during the day to supply power.
(2) The melting profile exhibited two transitions--one at about 35 degrees C and one above 50 degrees C. Our spectral data showed that helices I and II were stable during the first transition, and agreed with other data that helix III was the most likely helix to have melted.
(3) A compact attachment for microscope-type instruments is described enabling to introduce, rapidly and qualitatively, minute biological speciments into melted embedding medium and ensuring the safety of optics.
(4) However, significant differences in the formation and melting of the highly crystalline phase were evident between the two polar headgroup stereoisomers.
(5) The second step (50 degrees-54 degrees) involves the melting of the anticodon and miniloop regions.
(6) The melting of sea ice, ice caps and glaciers across the planet is one of the clearest signs of global warming and the UK-led team of scientists will use the data from CryoSat-2 to track how this is affecting ocean currents, sea levels and the overall global climate.
(7) The hybrids formed by the rapidly reacting fractions of both NRNA and mRNA melt over a narrow temperature range with a midpoint about 11 degrees C below that of native L cell DNA.
(8) It somewhat condescendingly divides the population into 15 groups – among them, Terraced Melting Pot (“Lower-income workers, mostly young, living in tightly packed inner-urban terraces”), and Suburban Mind-sets (“Maturing families on mid-range incomes living a moderate lifestyle in suburban semis”).
(9) SEM of the resulting surface showed rounded fragments of enamel rods, enamel melting, cracks, and smooth-edged voids.
(10) About half of Greenland's surface ice sheet melts during a typical summer, but Zwally said he and other scientists had been recording an acceleration of that melting process over the last few decades.
(11) Below-zero temperatures crowned the top of the US from Idaho to Minnesota, where many roads still had an inch-thick plate of ice, polished smooth by traffic and impervious to ice-melting chemicals.
(12) The decrease in melting temperature in DNA samples modified by N-AcO-AAF(DNA-AAF) was carefully reinvestigated.
(13) 3 For the dough: melt the lard with 100ml water in a small pan and leave to cool slightly.
(14) Both proteins are able to protect DNA against thermal denaturation, but the differences observed in the melting profiles suggest that they interact by different mechanisms.
(15) To measure the degree of wetting of the metallic phases, silver, tin, and copper were melted in such proportions as to give specimens of silver, tin, the alpha, beta, and gamma silver-tin phases, the eutectic in the silver-copper system.
(16) In contrast to the helix-destabilizing and distortive modifications of DNA caused by ultraviolet light or N-acetoxy-2-(acetylamino)fluorene, CC-1065 increases the melting point of DNA and decreases the S1 nuclease activity.
(17) The unsaturated drug-DNA complex melts through complex thermal transitions with one broad endotherm in the same temperature region as free DNA and the other at a higher temperature which is rf (mol ligand per mol DNA in base pairs) value dependent.
(18) Melting profiles of normal, hybrid, and double heavy DNA indicated a structural change of the double heavy DNA.
(19) But the crisis has left divisions more deeply entrenched than ever between the rich, Dutch-speaking north and poorer, French-speaking south, with melting pot Brussels marooned in the middle.
(20) The mutation in pro alpha 2(I) causes increased posttranslational modification in the amino-terminal half of some pro alpha 1(I) chains, lowers the melting temperature of type I collagen molecules that incorporate a mutant pro alpha 2(I) chain, and prevents or delays the secretion of those molecules from fibroblasts in cell culture.
Soften
Definition:
(v. t.) To make soft or more soft.
(v. t.) To render less hard; -- said of matter.
(v. t.) To mollify; to make less fierce or intractable.
(v. t.) To palliate; to represent as less enormous; as, to soften a fault.
(v. t.) To compose; to mitigate; to assuage.
(v. t.) To make less harsh, less rude, less offensive, or less violent, or to render of an opposite quality.
(v. t.) To make less glaring; to tone down; as, to soften the coloring of a picture.
(v. t.) To make tender; to make effeminate; to enervate; as, troops softened by luxury.
(v. t.) To make less harsh or grating, or of a quality the opposite; as, to soften the voice.
(v. i.) To become soft or softened, or less rude, harsh, severe, or obdurate.
Example Sentences:
(1) The other trend involved softening from penetrant liquid absorption and a concomitant decrease in hardness.
(2) Golding said the government would not soften its stance on drug trafficking and it intended to use a proportion of revenues from its licensing authority to support a public education campaign to discourage pot-smoking by young people and mitigate public health consequences.
(3) Pathologically, there was diffuse incomplete softening of white matter in all cases.
(4) Aware that her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, a former labour correspondent for the Guardian who understood the range of attitudes within trade unions, had tried to soften the impression that she saw Kinnock as another General Galtieri [Argentina’s president during the Falklands war], the draft text tried to distinguish between unions, rival parties and what the final text (the one she actually delivered) called “an organised revolutionary minority” with their “outmoded Marxist dogma about class warfare”.
(5) Add the onion, cook for three minutes, stirring, until softened, then add the wine, sage, lemon peel, lemon juice and 150ml water.
(6) Welfare cuts are now becoming a matter of life or death | Letters Read more But government sources suggested the political pressures on Osborne, who has been criticised publicly by a series of Tory MPs, suggest he will act more flexibly and direct substantial resources to softening the impact of the cuts.
(7) Moisture on the skin was shown to increase the discharge to a standard stimulus, probably by its softening effect on the stratum corneum.
(8) The importance of R for cervical softening during pregnancy and its interaction with E near term and during parturition are discussed.
(9) He and Cameron have spent the week softening up opinion for huge benefit cuts in next week’s budget , due to focus on tax credits, largely paid to in-work, ”hardworking” families, victims of Britain’s swelling ranks of the under-paid.
(10) The method of aspiration with a standard electric operative aspirator should be used for evacuation of the softened brain matter.
(11) But he also suggested the administration was softening its commitment to the Minsk framework for a deal.
(12) In a casserole over a medium heat, fry the onions in the oil and butter for 5 minutes, to soften.
(13) Its lines soften, its edges fade; it shrinks into the raw cold from the river, more like a shrouded mountain than a castle built for kings.
(14) The wizened fish is hammered with a mallet to soften it so you can pull it off in strips to eat.
(15) The substitution of the softeners with deionisers solved this important and unusual clinical problem.
(16) Softening and elution are not sufficient for constriction, however, since high potassium, 2,4-dinitrophenol, and cyanide inhibited constriction without inhibiting the softening or elution of axoplasm.
(17) Ribotyping patterns of aeromonads recovered from well 1, detention basin, sand filter, softener, and distribution samples were compared with those of the five clinical isolates.
(18) By softening these insects in a detergent solution, however, it is possible to make most observations in the same way as on fresh material.
(19) His and Osborne's post-election "softening up" is returning to haunt them.
(20) But recently, their attitude has softened as they realise the importance of music to the island.