Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An obsolete double-reed instrument with a soft tone.
  • noun A mute, especially one for a violin.
  • noun A stop on an organ producing a low, muted tone.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Softly played; muted; pathetic.
  • noun Same as mute, 3.
  • noun In the harmonium, a mechanical stop whereby the supply of wind to the lower vibrators is partially cut off, and the playing of full chords softly is facilitated.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music, historical A muted trumpet.
  • noun music, historical A mute; a damper.
  • adjective Muffled, muted; subdued.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an organ stop resulting in a soft muted sound
  • noun a mute for a violin

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Italian sordina, feminine of sordino, a mute, diminutive of sordo, deaf, mute; see sordino.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French sourdine.

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Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sourdine.

Examples

  • En sourdine posted by Cooper Renner in beauty, music | * | comment

    En sourdine | clusterflock 2009

  • A shambling family of starlings on Coll in May, debauched and chaotic and moaning about winter, above a corncrake still stoking up the year with its crex crex song “endorsing summer” as Louis MacNeice says, with the “sourdine in their throat” as Andrew Marvell says;

    A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009

  • Or a ladyeater may perhaps have casualised as you temptoed her … la sourdine: Of your plates?

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • The more complete sourdine, which muted all the strings by contact of a long strip of leather, acted as the staccato, pizzicato, or pianissimo.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 Various

  • Many are like the music en sourdine of Paul Verlaine in his "Chanson D'Automne" or "Le Piano que Baise une Main Frele."

    Chopin : the Man and His Music James Huneker 1890

  • sourdine in their throat—Andrew Marvell, “Upon Appleton House,” Marvell, p.

    A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009

  • La liberté de la contradiction centuple le prix d'une libre adhésion; et à force de mettre une sourdine à toutes les émotions du pays, il faut prendre garde qu'on ne se trouve un jour dans l'impossibilité de faire vibrer les cordes les plus essentielles quand le moment des dangers et des sacrifices sera arrivé. ']' I deeply regret the publication of that letter.

    Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Volume 2 Alexis de Tocqueville 1832

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