Melee

Look up melee or mêlée in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Naval melee at the Battle of Sluys 1340 (BNF Fr. 2643, 15th century)

Battle of Lützen by Carl Wahlbom depicting a melee in which King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was killed on 16 November 1632.

Melee (/ˈmeɪleɪ/ or /ˈmɛleɪ/, French: mêlée [mɛle]; the French spelling is also quite frequent in English writing) generally refers to disorganized close combat in battles fought at abnormally close range with little central control once it starts.^[1]

The French term was first used in English in c. 1640 (a re-borrowing of a lost Middle English melle, but the Old French borrowing survives in medley and meddle).^[1]

In military aviation, a melee has been described as "[a]n air battle in which several aircraft, both friend and foe, are confusingly intermingled".^[2]

Lord Nelson described his tactics for the Battle of Trafalgar as inducing a "pell mell battle" focused on engagements between individual ships where the superior morale and skill of the Royal Navy would prevail.^[3]

See also

• Close quarters combat
• Combat
• Melee weapon
• Galley tactics
• Chance medley

Notes

References

• Fremont-Barnes, Gregory (2005), Trafalgar 1805: Nelson's Crowning Victory, Osprey Publishing, p. 38 38, ISBN 978-1-84176-892-2 
• Kumar, Bharat; DeRemer, Dale; Marshall, Douglas (2004), An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation, McGraw Hill Professional, p. 462, ISBN 978-0-07-178260-9 
• "mêlée n.", Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.), Oxford University Press, March 2015