melee

1. (especially military, gaming) A battle fought at close range, (especially) one not involving ranged weapons; hand-to-hand combat; brawling.Examples: "Honestly, a lot of what this episode did right had more to do with the scenes that surrounded the enormous melee than those hyper-edited clashes of swords."; "The attack also afforded Helena to a front-seat view of literal air-to-air melee combat, as one Wildcat pilot of the Cactus Air Force, who was swooping in to help break up the attack, found himself out of machine-gun ammo; instead, he dropped his landing gear, positioned himself above the nearest bomber, and begun beating it to death, in midair, using his landing gear as clubs. After a bit of evasive action that the fighter easily kept up with, the repeated slamming broke something important, and the bomber spiralled down into the sea."countableespeciallyuncountable

2. (military, historical) A cavalry exercise in which two groups of riders try to cut paper plumes off the helmets of their opponents, the contest continuing until no member of one group retains his plume.countablehistoricaluncountable

3. (gaming, usually capitalized) The video game Super Smash Bros. Melee.capitalizedcountableuncountableusually