Mute

How to spell mute

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mute

What does mute mean?

1. adjectiveRefraining from speech, or making no sound.
2. verbTo deaden or switch off a sound, especially on a device.
3. nounA small device fitted to a musical instrument to soften its tone.

Mute in a sentence

• adjective

  The whole office fell mute when the director walked in.

• verb

  Please mute your microphone when you are not speaking on the call.

• noun

  The trumpeter slid a mute into the bell to soften the sound.

• adjective

  He stood mute during the entire meeting, offering no opinion.

• verb

  She had to mute the television to answer the phone.

• noun

  A mute clamped to the violin bridge lets her practise late at night.

Where does mute come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin adjective mutus, which meant 'silent' or 'unable to speak', a word thought to imitate the inarticulate sound 'mu' that a person makes when saying nothing intelligible. Latin passed it into Old French as muet, the diminutive form, which carried the same sense of speechlessness. English took the word up in the late 1300s and gradually trimmed the spelling toward the modern 'mute', keeping the final silent 'e' that signals the long 'u' sound. Over the centuries it broadened from describing a person who does not speak to describing anything kept silent, and then to the practical verb meaning 'to deaden a sound', as well as the noun for a small device that softens a musical instrument's tone. The same Latin root surfaces in the rarer word 'mutism', and the link to that simple silencing sound 'mu' is a neat way to remember why the word is spelled with a 'u'.

How the word is built

• mut- (from Latin mutus: silent, dumb)
• -e (English spelling vestige of the borrowed form)