mute

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: myo͞ot, IPA^(key): /mjuːt/, /mɪu̯t/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːt
• Homophone: moot (in some dialects)

Etymology 1

From Middle English muet, from Anglo-Norman muet, moet, Middle French muet, from mu (“dumb, mute”) + -et, remodelled after Latin mūtus.

Adjective

mute (comparative muter, superlative mutest)

1. Not having the power of speech; dumb.
   • 1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     Thus, while the mute creation downward bend / Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, / Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes / Beholds his own hereditary skies. / From such rude principles our form began; / And earth was metamorphos'd into Man.

2. Silent; not making a sound.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

     All the heavenly choir stood mute, / And silence was in heaven.

   • 1956, Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (?, translators), Lion Feuchtwanger (German author), Raquel: The Jewess of Toledo (translation of Die Jüdin von Toledo), Messner, page 178:

     “ The heathens have broken into Thy Temple, and Thou art silent! Esau mocks Thy Children, and Thou remainest mute! Show thyself, arise, and let Thy Voice resound, Thou mutest among all the mute!”

3. Not uttered; unpronounced; silent; also, produced by complete closure of the mouth organs which interrupt the passage of breath; said of certain letters.
4. Not giving a ringing sound when struck; said of a metal.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Mute (music)

Wikipedia

mute (plural mutes)

1. (phonetics, now obsolete) A stopped consonant; a stop.

   Synonyms: occlusive, plosive, stop

2. (obsolete, theater) An actor who does not speak; a mime performer.
   • 1668 OF Dramatick Poesie, AN ESSAY. By JOHN DRYDEN Esq; (John Dryden)

     As for the poor honest Maid, whom all the Story is built upon, and who ought to be one of the principal Actors in the Play, she is commonly a Mute in it:

3. A person who does not have the power of speech.
   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     The girl left, and presently returned, followed by two male mutes, to whom the Queen made another sign.

4. A hired mourner at a funeral; an undertaker's assistant.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter IX, in The History of Pendennis. , volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1850, →OCLC, page 95:

     He asked about the undertaking business, and how many mutes went down with Lady Estrich’s remains […]

   • 1950, Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, →OCLC:

     The little box was eventually carried in one hand by the leading mute, while his colleague, with a finger placed on the lid, to prevent it from swaying, walked to one side and a little to the rear.

   • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 481:

     Then followed a long silence during which the mute turned to them and said, ‘Of course you'll be wanting an urn, sir?’

5. (music) An object for dulling the sound of an instrument, especially a brass instrument, or damper for pianoforte; a sordine.
6. An electronic switch or control that mutes the sound.
   • 2012, Tomlinson Holman, Sound for Film and Television, page 174:

     Another related primary control is called a mute, which is simply a switch that kills the signal altogether, allowing for a speedier turn-off than turning the fader all the way down rapidly. Mutes are probably more commonly used during multitrack music recording than during film mixing because in music all tracks are on practically all of the time, whereas workstations produce silence when there is no desired signal […]

7. A mute swan.
   • 1998, Bob Devine, National Geographic Society (U.S.), Alien invasion: America's battle with non-native animals and plants:

     The trumpeters' fate seems likely to get tangled with that of the mute swan. Currently there's enough habitat for both species, but that may change if trumpeters flourish and mutes aren't controlled. Right now mutes are thriving.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

mute (third-person singular simple present mutes, present participle muting, simple past and past participle muted)

1. (transitive) To silence, to make quiet.
2. (transitive) To turn off the sound of.

   Antonym: unmute

   Please mute the music while I make a call.

Derived terms

• muter

Translations

See also

• dumb

Etymology 2

From Middle French muetir, probably a shortened form of esmeutir, ultimately from Proto-Germanic.

Verb

mute (third-person singular simple present mutes, present participle muting, simple past and past participle muted)

1. (now rare) Of a bird: to defecate.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Tobit 2:10:

     And I knewe not that there were Sparrowes in the wall, and mine eyes being open, the Sparrowes muted warme doung into mine eyes,...

   • 1946, George Orwell, Animal Farm, Signet Classics, pages 40–41:

     All the pigeons, to the number of thirty-five, flew to and fro over the men's heads and muted upon them from mid-air; […]

Noun

mute (plural mutes)

1. The faeces of a hawk or falcon.
   • 1662, [Samuel Butler], “”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. , London: John Martyn and Henry Herringman, , published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:

     On which was written not in words,
     But hieroglyphic mute of birds

   • 1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter III, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, book I (The Sword in the Stone):

     The Wart was familiar with the nests of Spar-hawk and Gos, the crazy conglomerations of sticks and oddments which had been taken over from squirrels or crows, and he knew how the twigs and the tree foot were splashed with white mutes, old bones, muddy feathers and castings.

Translations

Etymology 3

From Latin mutare (“to change”).

Verb

mute (third-person singular simple present mutes, present participle muting, simple past and past participle muted)

1. (transitive) To cast off; to moult.
   • 1633 May 21 (licensing date), John Fletcher, James Shirley, “The Night-Walker, or The Little Thief. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies , London: Humphrey Robinson, , and for Humphrey Moseley , published 1679, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iv:

     Have I muted all my feathers?

Esperanto

Etymology

From muta +‎ -e.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):
• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ute
• Hyphenation: mu‧te

Adverb

mute

1. mutely, speechlessly

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /myt/

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

mute

1. inflection of muter:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Anagrams

• émut, émût, meut, muet

Galician

Verb

mute

1. inflection of mutar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmu.te/
• Rhymes: -ute
• Hyphenation: mù‧te

Adjective

mute

1. feminine plural of muto

Noun

mute f pl

1. plural of muta

Latgalian

Etymology

Cognates include Latvian mute.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):
• Hyphenation: mu‧te

Noun

mute f

1. mouth

Declension

References

• A. Andronov, L. Leikuma (2008) Latgalīšu-Latvīšu-Krīvu sarunu vuordineica, Lvava, →ISBN, page 172

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈmuː.te/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈmu.te/,

Adjective

mūte

1. vocative masculine singular of mūtus

Latvian

 mute on Latvian Wikipedia

Picture dictionary
ūka lūpa mēle priekšzobi acu zobi mazie dzerokļi zobi mandele lilie dzerokļi m.aukslējas c.aukslējas smaganas
Mute
galva ķermenis

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *mnt-, *ment- (“to chew; jaw, mouth”). Cognate with Latin mentum (“chin”) and mandō (“to chew”), Ancient Greek μάσταξ (mástax, “jaws, mouth”) and μασάομαι (masáomai, “to chew”), Welsh mant (“jawbone”), Hittite (mēni, “chin”), Proto-Germanic *munþaz (“mouth”) (English mouth, German Mund, Dutch mond, Swedish mun, Icelandic munnur, Gothic 𐌼𐌿𐌽𐌸𐍃 (munþs)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Noun

mute f (5th declension)

1. (anatomy) mouth (orifice for ingesting food)

   mutes orgāni ― mouth organs

   aizvērt muti ― to close one's mouth

   plātīt muti ― to keep one's mouth open, to gape

   turēt mutē konfekti ― to have candy in one's mouth

   mutes kaktiņi ― corners of the mouth

   mutes harmonikas ― harmonica (musical instrument)

2. orifice, opening, entrance

   krāsns mute ― the mouth of the oven

3. face

   mazgāt muti ― to wash one's mouth (= face)

   bērni ar netīrām mutēm ― children with dirty mouths (= faces)

4. kiss

   dot mutes ― to give mouths (= kisses)

Declension

Derived terms

• mutīgs
• mutisks

Middle English

Adjective

mute

1. Alternative form of muet

Murui Huitoto

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):
• Hyphenation: mu‧te

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

mute

1. (transitive) to feel sorry for
2. (transitive) to complain about

Conjugation

Etymology 2

Onomatopoeic.

Verb

mute

1. (intransitive) to produce the sound jmm

Conjugation

References

• Shirley Burtch (1983) Diccionario Huitoto Murui (Tomo I) (Linguistica Peruana No. 20)‎ (in Spanish), Yarinacocha, Peru: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, page 183
• Katarzyna Izabela Wojtylak (2017) A grammar of Murui (Bue): a Witotoan language of Northwest Amazonia.‎, Townsville: James Cook University press (PhD thesis), pages 113, 129

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology 1

From Old Norse múta from Proto-Germanic *mōtō (of unclear origin). Compare Swedish muta.

Noun

mute f (definite singular muta, indefinite plural muter, definite plural mutene)

1. bribe
2. secrecy

Verb

mute (present tense mutar, past tense muta, past participle muta, passive infinitive mutast, present participle mutande, imperative mute/mut)

1. (transitive) to bribe
2. (transitive) to hide, conceal

Etymology 2

From German muten.

Verb

mute (present tense mutar, past tense muta, past participle muta, passive infinitive mutast, present participle mutande, imperative mute/mut)

1. (mining) to apply for a mining permit

References

• “mute” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Portuguese

Verb

mute

1. inflection of mutar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Verb

mute

1. third-person singular/plural present subjunctive of muta

Serbo-Croatian

Verb

mute (Cyrillic spelling муте)

1. third-person plural present indicative of mutiti

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmute/
• Rhymes: -ute
• Syllabification: mu‧te

Verb

mute

1. inflection of mutar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative