mute

Etymology 1

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

adj

1. Not having the power of speech; dumb.
2. Silent; not making a sound.
   […] 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! 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
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.

noun

1. (phonetics, now obsolete) A stopped consonant; a stop.
2. (obsolete, theater) 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: 1668 OF Dramatick Poesie, AN ESSAY. By JOHN DRYDEN Esq; (John Dryden)
3. A person who does not have the power of speech.
4. A hired mourner at a funeral; an undertaker's assistant.
   Then followed a long silence during which the mute turned to them and said, ‘Of course you'll be wanting an urn, sir?’ 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 481
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.
   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 […] 2012, Tomlinson Holman, Sound for Film and Television, page 174
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. 1998, Bob Devine, National Geographic Society (U.S.), Alien invasion: America's battle with non-native animals and plants

verb

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

Etymology 2

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

verb

1. (now rare) Of a bird: to defecate.
   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;[…] 1946, George Orwell, Animal Farm, Signet Classics, pages 40–41

noun

1. The faeces of a hawk or falcon.
   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. 1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter III, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, book I (The Sword in the Stone)

Etymology 3

From Latin mutare (“to change”).

verb

1. (transitive) To cast off; to moult.