Definition

1. Noun:

   • A small, silvery fish resembling a trout, found in cold northern marine or freshwater environments and used as food.
   • A small, silvery cold-water fish that migrates between saltwater and freshwater habitats.

2. Verb:

   • To extract a metal from its ore by a process involving heating and melting.

Usage and Examples

• Noun (Fish):
  • The river is known for its population of smelt.
  • We caught several smelt for dinner.
• Verb (Metal Extraction):
  • The company will smelt the iron ore to produce pure metal.
  • Ancient civilizations learned to smelt copper thousands of years ago.

Advanced Usage

• "to smelt down": To melt a metal object, often to reuse the material.
  • They decided to smelt down the old bronze statues.

Variants and Related Words

• Smelter (n): A person or facility that smelts ore.
  • He works at the copper smelter.
• Smelting (n): The process of extracting metal by heating and melting.
  • The smelting process requires extremely high temperatures.

Synonyms

• Noun (Fish): None commonly used; it is a specific type of fish.
• Verb (Extract metal): Fuse, melt, refine.

Notes on Different Meanings

• The word 'smelt' is also the simple past tense and past participle form of the verb 'to smell' (e.g., ). However, this is a separate lexical entry. The definitions above are for 'smelt' as its own distinct noun and verb.

Noun

1. small trout-like silvery marine or freshwater food fishes of cold northern waters
2. small cold-water silvery fish; migrate between salt and fresh water

Verb

1. extract (metals) by heating