Melee - Origin of The Term

Origin of The Term

The French term is the feminine past participle of the verb mêler "to mix". Nominalized, it refers to any confused tangle or agitated scramble, in particular unordered combat. The term descends from Old French meslede, from Vulgar Latin misculāta "mixed", from Latin miscēre "to mix"; compare mélange, milieu. Like other common foreign-derived terms used in English, the word is sometimes written without accents (i.e. as "melee").

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