mêlée

Borrowed from French mêlée.

mêlée (plural mêlées)

1. Alternative spelling of melee.
   • 1988, Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, William Heinemann Ltd, page 218:

     What could the Draycotts possibly be doing here? And where, in such a mêlée, could the Draycotts possibly be?

Inherited from Old French meslee, older meslede, from the feminine past participle of early Medieval Latin misculō, derived from Latin misceō. By surface analysis, mêl- +‎ -ée.

• IPA^(key): /mɛ.le/ ~ /me.le/

• Audio (France):

  (file)

mêlée f (plural mêlées)

1. fray, brawl, fight, melee (especially disorganized)

   la mêlée pour monter dans le train ― the squabble to get on the train

2. (rugby) scrum

• → Catalan: melé
• → English: melee
• → Italian: mêlée
• → Portuguese: melê
• → Spanish: melé

mêlée f sg

1. feminine singular of mêlé

• demi de mêlée

• “mêlée”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.