mute

adjective muter · mutest

1. 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.
2. Silent; not making a sound. He ask’d, but all the Heav’nly Quire ſtood mute, / And ſilence was in Heav’n: […]
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.

Similar: aphonic, aphonous, dumb, dumb as a post, mumchance, mute, tongueless, unspeaking, voiceless · Opposite: audible, nonmute, talkative, vocal, voiced

noun mutes

1. obsolete A stopped consonant; a stop.

   Similar: occlusive, plosive, stop

2. obsolete An actor who does not speak; a mime performer. 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. 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. He asked about the undertaking business, and how many mutes went down with Lady Estrich’s remains […]
5. 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. 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 mu
7. A mute swan. 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.
8. Internet An action of muting, especially in a discussion forum as a penalty for breaking rules.

verb mutes · muting · muted

1. transitive To silence, to make quiet.
2. transitive To turn off the sound of. Please mute the music while I make a call.

   Opposite: unmute

3. transitive To cause the content or messages of (a social media account, a website, etc.) to no longer appear on one's feed, trigger notifications, or similar, especially without fully blocking.

verb mutes · muting · muted

1. archaic Of a bird: to defecate. I Mute as a hauke dothe whan ſhe hath endued her gorge.

noun mutes

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

verb mutes · muting · muted

1. transitive To cast off; to moult. Have I muted all my feathers?