mute

verb

No English definition recorded for this entry.

Pronunciation: /mjuːt/ / /mjʉwt/ / /mjut/

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

Not having the power of speech; dumb.
“Thus, while the mute Creation downward bend / Their sight, and to their Earthy 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.”
Silent; not making a sound.
“He ask’d, but all the Heav’nly Quire ſtood mute, / And ſilence was in Heav’n: […]”
“[…] 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!”
Not uttered; unpronounced; silent; also, produced by complete closure of the mouth organs which interrupt the passage of breath; said of certain letters.
Not giving a ringing sound when struck; said of a metal.

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

The faeces of a hawk or falcon.
“On which was written not in words, But hieroglyphic mute of birds”
“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.”

Etymology: From Latin mutare (“to change”).