smelt
/smelt/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
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.
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
- small trout-like silvery marine or freshwater food fishes of cold northern waters
- small cold-water silvery fish; migrate between salt and fresh water
Verb
- extract (metals) by heating