melting

melting — adjective

1. A melting look, voice, or expression is so full of gentle warmth and affection t

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

A melting look, voice, or expression is so full of gentle warmth and affection that it makes the person watching or listening want to show them care or love.

Example

Asher gave his puppy a melting look, and his mother let him keep it.

collocation: melting look

There was a melting quality in Nadia's voice that made everyone lean closer to listen.

collocation: melting quality; voice

Common collocations
  • melting look
  • melting voice
  • melting expression
  • melting smile
  • melting gaze
  • melting tenderness
  • melting tone
Synonyms
  • tender

    more common and broader; can describe a person's nature, not just their look or voice

  • endearing

    focuses more on making someone feel affection than sympathy

  • touching

    emphasises a general emotional response rather than specifically love or sympathy

  • affectionate

    describes active warmth in someone's behaviour, not the effect it has on others

Antonyms
  • cold

    lacking warmth or sympathy; opposite emotional quality

  • hard

    showing no kindness or softness

Grammar Patterns

melting + noun (look / voice / expression)

be + melting

Usage Note

Most often used before nouns such as look, voice, expression, smile, or gaze. Can also be used after linking verbs (e.g., 'Her tone was melting' ), but the attributive position is far more common in everyday English.

Common Mistakes

She is a melting person.
She has a melting smile.
'melting' describes the person's look or voice, not the person's character directly.
The butter is melting on the counter.
His melting eyes made her forgive him at once.
The physical sense of something becoming liquid is a different use of the word and is not an adjective describing emotional effect.

Word family

  • melt
    verbA2
  • melted
    adjectiveA2
  • meltdown
    nounB2

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Melting, tender, endearing, touching, and affectionate all describe warm emotional qualities, but they differ in what they focus on. Melting specifically describes a look or voice that causes sympathy or love in the person seeing or hearing it — it is about the effect on the observer. Tender is broader and can describe a person's nature, an action, or a feeling (e.g., 'a tender kiss'). Endearing highlights the quality of making people feel fond of someone or something, often through small habits or imperfections (e.g., 'her endearing shyness'). Touching refers to anything that stirs a general emotional response, not limited to love or sympathy (e.g., 'a touching farewell speech'). Affectionate describes active, intentional warmth in someone's behaviour toward another person (e.g., 'an affectionate hug'). A melting look is what you receive; an affectionate look is what someone gives.

tender ↗endearingtouching ↗affectionate ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

  • almost meltingly

Phrases

  • a melting look
  • a melting voice
  • a melting expression

Etymology

Old EnglishEnglish

The adjective melting comes from the verb melt (to turn from solid to liquid by heat). From the 1300s, melt was already used figuratively to describe a heart 'dissolving' with pity or love. By the 1700s, melting had become a fixed adjective for voices, looks, and expressions that 'soften' the listener's heart, as if their emotional defences were warming and dissolving.