Remelts

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of melting something again after it has solidified
2. The process of causing a substance to return to a molten state for reshaping or reforming
3. A repeated heating event that transforms solid material back into liquid form

Etymology: "Remelts" is the third-person singular form of "remelt", so it means "melts down again" in the sense of something being heated until it liquefies a second time. The verb is formed from the prefix "re-", meaning "again" or "back", attached to "melt", which is inherited from Old English. The prefix itself came into English through Old French, where it had been taken from Latin "re-", and that Latin prefix has roots reaching back to Proto-Italic "wre-". The combination is a straightforward one. "Melt" describes the change of a solid into a liquid under heat, and adding "re-" simply repeats that process: metal that has already been cast or hardened is put back into the furnace until it runs again. Because the base is ancient and the prefix is productive, "remelt" is a transparent formation rather than a word with any surprising twist in its history.

Synonyms: reheats, recasts, reprocesses, reworks, recycles