Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Mute   /mjut/   Listen
Mute

verb
1.
Deaden (a sound or noise), especially by wrapping.  Synonyms: damp, dampen, dull, muffle, tone down.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Mute" Quotes from Famous Books



... cannot longer justify myself, To be a mute spectator of such ruin, As hourly threatens this respected family. [Aside.] To flatter, or conceal would ill become That friendship you have said you so esteem. My heart is open then, and can't acquit you. You've lost that fortitude ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard

... feelings of the most grateful homage;—a gentleman, whose abilities upon this occasion, as upon some former ones, happily for the glory of the age in which we live, are not entrusted merely to the perishable eloquence of the day, but will live to be the admiration of that hour when all of us are mute, and most of us forgotten;—that Honorable gentleman has told you that Prudence, the first of virtues, never can be used in the cause of vice. If, reluctant and diffident, I might take such a liberty, I should ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... subtle power of fascination invested this dark daughter of the earth. The liquid dark eyes lifted themselves in mute appeal to the great lady's face, and then the proudest woman in England opened her arms with a sudden impulse and took the outcast to ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... on the balcony over her, where he had been watching her approach in mute wonder. "Why, Miss Vervain," he called down, "what in the world ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... to, unless when I shall see no better company than ourselves. To be plain, I find difficulty in modelling my voice to a smoother tone than nature has given it. So, henceforth, my brave captain, I will be mute, unless when you give me a sign ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... did the mammoth shut his eyes, Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened,—arms and thighs All of a piece—struck mute, much as a sentry stands, Patient to take the enemy's fire: ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... that I wondered the very grass did not take fire. . . . Everything, both animate and inanimate, gave way before it: the horses stood with their backs to the wind, and their noses to the ground, without the muscular strength to raise their heads; the birds were mute, and the leaves of the trees, under which we were sitting, fell like a snow shower around us. At noon I took a thermometer, graduated to 127 degrees, out of my box, and observed that the mercury was up to 125 degrees. Thinking that ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... grasped her tiny black-gloved hand, and then, also in silence, raised it passionately to my eager lips. Her soft, dark eyes—those eyes that spoke although she was mute—met mine, and in them was a look that I had never seen there before—a look which as plainly as any words told me that my wild fevered ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... (in some out-of-the-way towns) the priests, in gaudiest robes, bring out from under the altar and expose aloft to the crowds, in swaddling-clothes of gold and white, the Babe new-born, and all fall down and cross themselves in mute adoration. This service is universal, and is called the "Misa del Gallo," or Cock-crow Mass, and even in Madrid it is customary to attend it. There are three masses also on Christmas Day, and the Church rule, strictly observed, is ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... Belly, that they cannot mute; Anoint their Vents, and give them either small bits of Bread or Corn, steep'd in ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett

... to have been stricken down in sudden death. It was clad in the trim yellow smock of a coolie of Ku Sui. It was limp, its arms and legs spreadeagled, and it lay there as mute evidence that the dome of the asteroid had ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... I stand aghast at the revelations there made of human life and the human heart; at its colossal guilt, and its colossal misery; at the suffering which oftentimes throws its shadow over palaces, and the grandeur of mute endurance which sometimes glorifies a cottage. Here transpires the dreadful truth of what is going on forever under the thick curtains of domestic life, close behind us, and before us, and all around us. Newspapers ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... it sharpens them too much, my dear," said Mrs. Westfield coldly. She looked around the room helplessly as if seeking in some mute object tangible evidence of ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... warfare was over, had begun to weep so profusely that so soon as her father released her, she turned, made a mute gesture to ask permission to depart, and hurried away; while Lady Thistlewood, who disliked above all that her husband should think her harsh to her step-children, began to relate the exceeding tenderness of the remonstrance which ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... window did not waste his time in this way. Judith was gone, and with her the spell that had held him mute and helpless, and he was a man of affairs once more. He was not a very cheerful man of affairs to-night. He was not singing or whistling to himself, as he usually did, but he moved competently enough about the room, entering the Judge's private ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... She did not sob convulsively as one would have expected under such circumstances; she did not cry out in agony, rather she appeared like a dumb, half lifeless creature, while in her eyes was a look of mute inquiry. ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... the hill. And now there stands Within bowshot of the isle—a house of God That calls to prayer—a parish church—the fruit Of kindly thoughts that stirr'd the watcher's heart, And clomb to Heaven in mute appeal, that night When vengeance smote and light and life went ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... said this there came into the Doctor's face the same look which he had just seen in the eyes of the father and mother who were trusting to him to save their little boy. Many times other fathers and other mothers had made that mute appeal to him, and he had done what he could for them. He had done all that could be done. He was doing it to-day, and he had been doing it every day these past eight weeks that had been as ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott

... and sidelong look the rougher sports, Turn eagerly to see the scene below; While mothers for the time forget their babes, And lovers who had sought out quiet nooks To tell the tale that all the past has told And coming times will tell, stand mute and gaze. The home-stretch soon is reached, and Channa's three By word and lash urged to their topmost speed, The foaming Babylonians left behind, While Devadatta and Timour draw near, A whole round gained, Timour a length ahead. But Devadatta loosens now his reins, Chides his fleet ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... managed to make a fair supper of the dried meat. Then,—she could not tell when,—she fell into a profound slumber, which was not broken until the sun had risen high, and the birds were whistling gaily among the branches—some of them gazing at her in mute surprise, as if they had discovered some new species ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... I am dumb! I am mute. But don't use strong language, Friday! It is bad form. You must have picked ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... was pale, and thinner Than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions With a mute ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... very essence of womanhood. The longing of all the dead women of her race flowed through her into the softness of the spring evening. Things were there which she could know only through her blood—all the mute patience, all the joy that is half fear, all the age-long dissatisfaction with the merely physical end of love—these were in that voiceless entreaty for happiness; and mingled with them, there were the inherited ideals of self-surrender, of ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... on either hand. At a gesture of the king's the countess and Anne placed themselves on seats less raised, but still upon the dais. But now as Edward sat, the hall grew gradually full of lords and knights who commanded in Warwick's train, while the earl and the archbishop stood mute in the centre, the one armed cap-a-pie, leaning on his sword, the other with his arms folded ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... front of the divan all eyes were directed towards us. The glitter and pomp of the merciless slave-raider's court was dazzling. Before their ruler all men salaamed. His officers surrounding him, watched every movement of his face, and the four-score slaves behind him stood mute and motionless, ready to do his bidding ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... uneasiness took hold of us more and more. Yet we were far from anticipating that in the space of a few days we should be driven into the midst of a diplomatic maelstrom, in which, after a week of intense anguish, we should look on, mute and helpless, at the shipwreck of European peace and of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... Sebald's. He would have no one to see him save ourselves and Hans Richter the churchwarden, a man after his own heart, and the Pernharts; and at first he marked not our coming, inasmuch as he was just then giving a toy to the deaf-mute boy, which he had carved with his own hand, and Dame Giovanna had much pains to carry away the child, who had cast himself on the old man with passionate love. Everything that moved the little one's soul he was forced, as it were, to express with unreasoning violence; and now, when the child was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... have peril; The wish is in my mind That I had fired the jungle, And left no leaf behind,— Burnt all bamboos to ashes, And made their music mute,— To save thee from the magic Of ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope

... up, hat-fashion, fanning wide his tail, dropped his giant webbed feet, and came to anchor with a rush. Then he folded those wonderful pinions of his, foot by rustling foot, stared stonily at the amazed, mute company around him, and, throwing back his immaculate, smooth, low-browed, spotless head, laughed to the winds, hoarsely, loudly, wildly—a rude, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... Sadie, answering the mute query, "I didn't want to be 'shown round' by anybody, and I'm not going to bore YOU with asking to see sights either. We'll just walk together; wherever YOU'RE going is good ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... his yellow skin and at his eyes in which the horror stayed, and laughed. He did not struggle when they stood him, mute, upon his feet and bound him, for Smith knew Indians. His lips and chin trembled; his throat, dry and contracted, made a clicking sound when he swallowed. His knees shook, and he had no power to control the twitching muscles of ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... day without was bright and lovely; the street was crowded with that life which is ever so joyous and affluent in the animated population of Naples. He saw the lover, as he passed, conversing with his mistress by those mute gestures which have survived all changes of languages, the same now as when the Etruscan painted yon vases in the Museo Borbonico. Light from without beckoned his youth to its mirth and its pleasures; and the dull walls within, lately large ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the box, fastened the door, that he might not be followed, shot the President, then—waving his pistol shouted "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (so be it always to tyrants), and leaped to the stage in front As he jumped, the American flag draped before the box—mute avenger of the nation's chief—caught his spur and, throwing him heavily, broke his leg The assassin, however escaped from the house in the confusion, mounted a horse which was waiting for him, and fled into Maryland He was at length overtaken in a barn, here he ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... and flashing eyes, the Indian Queen drew herself up scornfully, she looked at him, then turned her face away, and sat mute. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... hearers made reply when the guest finished his earnest, eager recital. Neither of them had paid much heed to his final words. For the Master and the Mistress were looking at each other in mute unhappiness. The same miserable thought was in the mind of each. And each knew the thought that was torturing the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... him on his old pillow. It was at first delightful to escape from the restraint upon his reverie which he had lately experienced. He leant for an hour over his empty fireplace in mute abstraction. The cold, however, in time drove him to bed, but he could not sleep; his eyes indeed were closed, but the vision of Henrietta Temple was not less apparent to him. He recalled every feature of her countenance, every trait of her conduct, every ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... poetic feeling of which we are now conscious, springs not from the beholding of perfected beauty, but from the mute sympathy which the creation with all its children manifests with us in the groaning and travailing which look for the sonship. Because of our need and aspiration, the snowdrop gives birth in our hearts to a loftier spiritual and poetic feeling, than the rose most complete ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... only themselves, but the trial was too great when it came to denying their horses; and men whose discipline kept faith with my guards during the roasting-ear period now fell from grace. Their horses were growing thin, and few could withstand the mute appeals of their suffering pets; so at night the corn, because of individual foraging, kept stealthily and steadily vanishing, until the field was soon fringed with only earless stalks. The disappearance was noticed, and the guard increased, but still the quantity of corn continued to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... sacrifice, first catching sight, through palms, of Captain Cook. Recovering, she bade me enter; with her apron brushed off a stool; then silently resumed her own. With thanks I took the stool; but now, for a space, I, too, was mute. This, then, is the fairy-mountain house, and here, the fairy queen ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... with applause mingled with sobs; every eye was fixed on the royal box, as though in mute reparation for so many insults offered to the king and his family. The populace can never resist the sight of children, there are so many mothers in every crowd; the dauphin, a lovely child, seated on the lap of his mother, and ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... of rain was swept against the streaming window pane, and a gust of wind shook the frame in its sockets. The watcher turned away from the window with a mute gesture of despair. No eye could pierce that black chaos. He sank again into his seat, and looked around shuddering. The high, vaulted chamber was lit by a pair of candles only, leaving the greater part of it in gloom. ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the sons and daughters of dogs once friendly to humanity, and like the wild cats we had seen, they bore mute testimony to the numbers of people who once lived ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... As with mute, sickly denial I turned away it seemed to me that I sensed a shifting of forms at the monte table—caught the words "You watch here a moment"; and close following, a slim white hand fell heavily upon My Lady's shoulder. It whirled her about, to face the gambler. His smooth olive ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... in my slumber, and in my waking fancies did I see her pale, troubled face, with her pitying eyes looking on me as from that bed of pain and death, and at such times I reached out my hands toward her in mute pleading for forgiveness, forgetting or not knowing that she was dead. But the moment soon came when the truth was flashed through the blackness of night upon me, and then my misery was more than I could bear. ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... Mary. "It was one night when there was a division in the House, and it divided his soul from his body,—for they found him sitting mute as marble, and looking at their follies and strifes with eyes whose vision reached over and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... wall of the house was a small ante-room or lobby, in which was seated on the bare floor a little ill-looking hump-backed slave, whom the Caliph, whose memory for faces was remarkable, immediately recognized as a mute who had been under the orders of Mesrur, and who, in consequence, it was supposed, of some punishment inflicted upon him, had fled from the palace some months previously. The sight of this slave caused Haroun to be additionally ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... sat mute and motionless until a crooning lullaby and the unmistakable tapping of rockers on a bare floor brought her to her feet in dismay. With an angry frown she strode across the room, but she stopped short at the sight that ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... glimmering scene, In the rough fern-clad park, the herded deer [14] Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear; When horses in the sunburnt intake [E] stood, 50 And vainly eyed below the tempting flood, Or tracked the passenger, in mute distress, With forward neck the closing gate to press—[15] Then, while I wandered where the huddling rill Brightens with water-breaks the hollow ghyll [F] [16] 55 As by enchantment, an obscure retreat [17] Opened at once, and stayed my devious ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... often stocked and whipped; scolds are ducked upon cucking-stools in the water. Such felons as stand mute, and speak not at their arraignment, are pressed to death by huge weights laid upon a board, that lieth over their breast, and a sharp stone under their backs; and these commonly held their peace, thereby ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... did not grieve at the death of that little girl. She aided in my effort to earn a livelihood. I saw her daily, and no one could help becoming fond of her, she was so good, and gentle, and quiet. Her poor father—how I pity him! The mute anguish in his face was overpowering. He is the most quiet, but he grieves the most, and will never ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... had surrendered, and the new outposts were occupied, the King wished to make his entry into this important town, which he had long desired to see. The people and the burghers, although mute and silent, willingly watched the French army and its King march past, but the aristocracy scarcely showed themselves at any of the windows, and the few folk who appeared here and there on the balconies ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... garden walls, but he waited till nightfall; he was afraid that she might see him. The instinct that led him to act in this way arose out of so obscure a mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man in like case, can fully understand its mute ecstasies and its vagaries, matter to set those people who are lucky enough to see life only in its matter-of-fact aspect shrugging their shoulders. After painful hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. de Beauseant. Here is the letter, ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac

... pleading aloud For recompense, till I at last prevail'd. But now, with darts of anguish ye transfix My inmost soul, and I have no redress. He spake impassion'd, and to earth cast down His sceptre, weeping. Pity at that sight Seiz'd all the people; mute the assembly sat Long time, none dared to greet Telemachus With answer rough, till of them all, at last, 110 Antinoues, sole arising, thus replied. Telemachus, intemp'rate in harangue, High-sounding orator! it is thy drift To make us all odious; but the offence Lies not ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... first aim to make his people look as if they belonged to their station. The "mute inglorious Milton" and Maud Muller with her "nameless longings" had no place on his canvases. His was the genuine peasant of field and farm, no imaginary denizen of the poets' Arcady. "The beautiful is the fitting," was his final summary of aesthetic ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll

... that are beyond our ways, Or he would not be calm and she be mute, As one by one their lost and empty days Pass without even the warmth ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... they had come to fight. Only one out of ten of the Bruckians was still uninfected, and another three out of the ten were clearly in the late stages of the disease, walking about blankly and blindly, stumbling into things in their paths, falling to the ground and lying mute and helpless until death came to release them. Under the glaring red sun, weary parties of stretcher bearers went about the silent streets, moving their grim cargo out to the mass graves at the ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... minutes kneeling by the side of his son in mute despair, and then for the last time he sprang on to his horse and rushed into the thickest ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... me, Antonello mio!" exclaimed old Contarini, after gazing awhile in mute astonishment at the sketch before him; "tell me, in the name of wonder, what kind of face do you mean to draw around that lean and withered nose and that horribly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... ceased to struggle and to exclaim; he stood sullen, mute, desperate; while an agitated face peered eagerly over each of his shoulders at the open pocket-book in Green's hands, on which the lantern now poured a narrow but ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... Once in the presence, they seated themselves on the ground and fixed their eyes upon the object of their adoration, who all the while went on steadfastly with whatever work he was engaged in, never even lifting his eyes to the faces of his mute worshippers." ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley

... servants urged them to do so, as the only means of saving their lives. They were kept seated in their tent while the fanatics discussed the subject. The travellers sat in silence. At last Mr Richardson exclaimed: "Let us talk a little. We must die. What is the use of sitting so mute?" For some minutes death seemed really to hover over their heads. Mr Richardson proposed trying to escape for their lives, when the kind-hearted Sliman rushed into the tent, exclaiming in a tone of sincere sympathy: "You are ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... life have worn away; Discordantly they thrill; And soon the sounding chords will be For ever mute and still. And in the spirit-land that lies Beyond, so calm and gray, I shall aspire with truer aim:— ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford

... at each other. What did this mean? Had the servants left in a body? Did they know that something was going to happen? Such were the mute questions which their looks asked ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... jewels of the Arctic will forever look barren and unfinished to me after this. Even the sailors, who know too well what a menace they are to their craft, yield to their beauty a mute and grudging homage. To sit in the sun or the moonlight, and watch a heavy sea hurling mountains of water and foam over one of these ocean monarchs is a never-to-be-forgotten experience. So too it is to listen to the thunder of one of them "foundering"; ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... day, but now—well now, he was body-servant for her daughter and a more faithful soul it would be hard to find. For seven years she had lived upon the island, surrounded by these men. She knew them well enough. True, there was the graveyard back of the prison compound, eloquent, mute testimony of certain lapses from trustworthiness, but she was not afraid. She had no imagination, and Mercier, failing to make her sense danger, gave it up. It had been a great effort. He had been pleading for protection ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte

... had progressed for two months with the use only of raised letters, Dr. Howe sent one of his teachers to learn the manual alphabet from a deaf-mute. She taught it to Laura, and from that time on the manual alphabet was the ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... always varying either the attitude of the Saviour, or the persons who adore Him, but the serene attitude of the Son of God is unalterable. Without exaggerated contractions or violent action He remains fixed on the cross, His head bowed in mute contemplation of the figures below Him. These, on the contrary, are the prey of sorrow and despair, they cover their faces, or weep distractedly ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer of letters,— Did not [v]embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases, But came straight to the point and blurted it out like a schoolboy; Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly. Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with wonder, Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned and rendered her speechless; Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous silence: "If the great ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... There was no anger in his eyes, no menace in his attitude. He merely appeared dumbfounded, crushed; there was in his face a look of mute, helpless astonishment, as a child might look when it saw an edifice of sand carefully and lovingly erected, levelled to the ground by the first careless wave. ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... unhappy husband called the seducer to the field, wounded him mortally, and—to increase yet more his infamy—even in the agony of death the slave confessed the whole, and craved forgiveness like a dog. Confessed the woman's crime—you mark me, Raoul!—had he died mute, or died even with a falsehood in his mouth, as I think he was bound to do in such extremity, affirming her innocence with his last breath, he had saved her, and perhaps spared her wretched lord the misery of knowing certainly the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... Strike, till mankind is free, mute the chains rattle! Fight till love conquers strife—Freedom's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... through which the light fell upon the bare oak steps, proving them to be spotless and polished as the floor of a convent. It was an unexpected quality, this rigid cleanliness, and the boy acknowledged it with a mute and deep satisfaction. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... we called at the Mute and Blind Asylums, which were then combined in one, where we were received with great kindness, every possible attention being lavished upon us to heighten our interest and render our visit enjoyable. Going to Buffalo we had a social, cozy visit with an aunt of Hattie's, ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... the mummy in its ancient case doing in Mrs. Jasher's arbor? That was the mute question which the two young people asked themselves and each other, as they stood in the chilly moonlight, staring at the grotesque thing. The mummy had disappeared from the Sailor's Rest at Pierside some weeks ago, and now ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... officials of all ranks! Literature was in the service of the censorship; military drill was all that was taught at the universities; the troops were trained like a ballet, and the peasants paid the taxes and were mute under the lash of serfdom. Patriotism meant the wringing of bribes from the quick and the dead. Those who did not take bribes were looked upon as rebels because they disturbed the general harmony. The birch copses were extirpated in support of discipline. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... to her pale, yet luminous disk? Orb of mystery and of solitude, brooding over our silent nights, this celestial luminary is at once sad and splendid in her glacial purity, and her limpid rays provoke a reverie full of charm and melancholy. Mute witness of terrestrial destinies, her nocturnal flame watches over our planet, following it in its course as ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... pleased 695 That so it should be. Be advised, desist, Hold thou thy peace. Else, if my glorious hands Once reach thee, the Olympian Powers combined To rescue thee, shall interfere in vain. He said,—whom Juno, awful Goddess, heard 700 Appall'd, and mute submitted to his will. But through the courts of Jove the heavenly Powers All felt displeasure; when to them arose Vulcan, illustrious artist, who with speech Conciliatory interposed to sooth 705 His white-armed ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... questions of the day had been discussed at length, when all the scandal-mongers were at the end of their anecdotes, when all the snares were laid, all the perfidies consummated, when one was thoroughly tired of prose, then, obedient to the mute petition of some beautiful, intelligent eyes, he became a poet, and sang the Ossianic loves of the heroes of his dreams, their chivalrous joys, and the sorrows of the absent fatherland, his dear Poland always ready to conquer and always defeated. But without these conditions—the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... his departed uncle with the odium of the fault? Was it worse in his uncle to use Jeremy Taylor than in himself to use his uncle? Or would his remonstrants accept the translocation of blame? Would the church-going or chapel-going inhabitants of Glaston remain mute when it came to be discovered that since his appointment he had not once preached a sermon of his own? How was it that knowing all about it in the background of his mind, he had never come to think of it before? It was true that, admirer of his uncle as he was, he had never imagined himself ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... between you." Turning once more, and bowing with deep emotion before Maria, he then, with a movement quick as thought, plunged a poniard in his bosom, and fell to the ground. "Go, tell the queen," he said to the officer of justice, who had stood a mute spectator of this scene—"tell her what you have witnessed; and add, that my promise has been fulfilled. And you, Augustus Glinski—will not this suffice? The assassin of the duke lies here before you. Oh, take her by the hand!" Then, looking his last towards Maria, he murmured—"And ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... the dancers' enclosure. She was so absurd and so laughed at, that she had not the courage to make a second attempt. She buried herself gloomily in her dark corner, only leaving it to hunt up Jupillon and carry him off, with the mute violence of a wife dragging her husband out of the wineshop and leading him home by ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... you, giants, whence and why?" I stand and ask in blank amaze; My soul accepts their mute reply: "A mystery, as are ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... prepared To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend From wing to wing, and half enclose him round With all his Peers: Attention held them mute. Thrice he assayed, and thrice in spite of Scorn Tears such as ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... should her hands fly to her bosom like that, and press there as if she had been hurt. He must have frightened her. And he was about to stammer his apologies and make himself known, when the expression on her face struck him mute. Her healthy golden skin turned white. Her lips quivered, opened. Then her eyes—their color was violet and something about them seemed to stab Pan. His mind went into a deadlock—seemed to whirl—and to flash ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... artificially adorned with an incomparable homeliness: but as things were I must either take or leave, and necessity made me enter, where we got eggs and ale by measure and by tail. At last to bed I went, my man lying on the floor by me, where in the night there were pigeons did very bountifully mute in his face: the day being no sooner come, and having but fifteen miles to Edinburgh, mounted upon my ten toes, and began first to hobble, and after to amble, and so being warm, I fell to pace by degrees; ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor

... Wisdom.' I term it The Feast of a Thousand Ants. It is performed with the aid of African driver ant, a pair of surgical scissors and a pot of honey. I have observed you studying with interest the human skeleton yonder. It is that of one of my followers—a Nubian mute—who met with an untimely end quite recently. You are wondering, no doubt, how I obtained the frame in so short a time? My African driver ants, Dr. Stuart, of which I have three large cases in a cellar below this room, performed the task for me ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... been enacted, forbidding those deaf by birth from making wills, unless their intention is declared in writing;[65] and in Louisiana a deaf man is incapable of acting as a witness to a testament.[66] In several states, as New York and Massachusetts, there have been enactments in regard to deaf-mute immigrants together with other classes who might be likely to become a public charge, with the exaction of bond as security.[67] In Georgia[68] there is an enactment in reference to various itinerant concerns ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best

... one of the mangers, and there the child was. The lantern was brought, and the shepherds stood by mute. The little one made no sign; it was as others ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... be thus rebuked A little time stood mute; But having gulp'd his passion down, Replies, - That ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... voice, one people, one in heart And soul, and feeling, and desire! Re-light the smouldering martial fire, Sound the mute trumpet, strike the lyre, The hero deed can not expire, The dead ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster

... Enos remained mute; and Uncle Jaw, after waiting a while, recommenced with, "But, railly, deacon, I should ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... probably in any event yield a fair supply of delicious fruit. Secure this as soon as possible. At the same time remember that a plant of a good variety is a genius capable of wonderful development. In ordinary circumstances it is like the "mute, inglorious" poets whose enforced limitations were lamented by the poet Gray; but when its innate powers and gifts are fully nourished it expands into surprising proportions, sends up hundreds of flowers, which are followed by ruby gems of fruit whose ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... whether in dissent or agnosticism, but remained mute. A smell of hawthorn and of orchards came to them through the darkness, telling them that a wind was awake; the next moment it swayed their little boat and swelled their sail, and carried them onward down the winding river to happier places and ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... frigidity of the subchief where he had expected gratitude or at least hospitality, glanced questioningly at Yuara. But the young man stood mute, looking straight ahead. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... would it avail me, in such an event, to plead an alibi—to assure my old friends that I was, during the whole of the campaign, in England—that I was never in America, or any other sea but between Dover and Calais, and that all my acts of piracy were committed on the mute creation? All this may be true, says a minister or a minister's understrapper, but you are for the present suspected, and that is sufficient. I know that you are fond of Scotland:—this is not the time for proofs; you may be, and very ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... and friend of all my days Even since they cast off boyhood, I salute The song saluting friends whose songs are mute With full burnt-offerings of clear-spirited praise. That since our old young years our several ways Have led through fields diverse of flower and fruit, Yet no cross wind has once relaxed the root We set long since beneath the sundawn's ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... leaped from his chair in a great fright, believing that the old woman was making her entrance; but nothing appearing, the same awful silence and stillness as before took place, only fear staid behind in the farmer's breast, and Mr. Carew and his companion kept mute, as though in expectation of what would follow; but soon this solemn silence was disturbed by a loud thump at the door; again the farmer leaped from his seat, crying out, O Lord! save and deliver us! ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... glances where The legions sat in mute despair; And then to Hanuman, the best Of Vanar lords, these words addressed: "Why still, and silent, and apart, O hero of the dauntless heart? Thou keepest treasured in thy mind The laws that rule the Vanar kind, Strong as our king Sugriva, brave ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... speaking in violent terms, Pompeius said that Marcellinus, of all men, showed the least regard to fair dealing, because he was not grateful to him in that he was the means of Marcellinus becoming eloquent, though he was formerly mute, and of now being so full as to vomit, though formerly he ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... replied Sophia; "my gazelle is as mute as a mermaid. Very provoking, is it not, when all the other animals in ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... packed them among his belongings for his journey to the east. Grabbing one of these, he struck the trembling girl half a dozen light blows across the shoulders, and then dropped it, ashamed of himself and startled at the frightened, pleading look in the black eyes raised to his in mute appeal. As the first blow descended, the terror in the thin face gave way to anger, intense, unreasoning; but she stood like a statue, silent and dry-eyed, until the slipper fell from her father's hands and he pushed her from him, ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... And Echo was mute to the patriarch's tread,— "How tranquil is Nature!" that patriarch said; He onward advances, where boughs overshade A lonelier spot, and ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... smiled. She went down on her knees beside him and took his hand in her two and held it tight. She had never seen in his eyes a look like the one now burning in them. She could not understand its mute ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... dumb? Must truth itself succumb? And thoughts be mute? Shall law be set aside, The right of prayer denied, Nature and God decried, And man ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various

... stood face to face, ready for the battle-cry, did the Algonquin ranks open, and the white men advance before the astonished gaze of the Iroquois. Never before had they set eyes on such an apparition, and they stood in mute wonder while Champlain raised his arquebuse, took aim at a chief, and fired. The chief fell dead. A warrior by his side fell wounded in the bushes. As the report rang through the air a frightful yell came from the allies, and in an instant their arrows were whizzing ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... us so much vexation. He stopped hard by me, and asked if I knew who he was? My astonishment had disconcerted me so much that I did not hear his question, which he repeated with a volley of oaths and threats; but I remained as mute ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... sense that he need not forever fight sleep. A wan glow flared behind the dark, uneven horizon, and a melancholy misshapen moon rose to make the white night one of shadows. Absolute silence claimed the desert. It was mute. Then that inscrutable something breathed to him, telling him when he was alone. He need not have looked at the ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... The wheels are mute on whirling rim; Unstirred, the dust is lying there; We do not bump the earth, but skim: Still, still we seem to fly ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... whirled the bell handle and put the receiver to his ear. There was no response. Impatiently he rang again. Still he got no reply. A feeling of alarm took possession of him. Frantically he rang and rang, but the receiver at his ear was mute. The wire was cut. ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... in answer to the other's mute question, "this is one of the days when a man, who is a man, may wish he'd ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... petrified, his mind seeming reluctant or unable to grasp at once her full meaning; then he came close to her, straight and tall, and paler than her own pale robe; the blood of all the Howards flashing from his eye, and speaking in his bearing. Thus, for a moment, they faced each other, pale, passionate, mute; then a voice, soft and suave, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... former visit, was merely soaked with the sprays; but the joisting-beams which supported it had, in the course of the winter, been covered with a fine downy conferva produced by the range of the sea. They were also a good deal whitened with the mute of the cormorant and other sea-fowls, which had roosted upon the beacon in winter. Upon ascending to the apartments, it was found that the motion of the sea had thrown open the door of the cook-house: this was only shut with a single latch, that in case of shipwreck at the Bell Rock ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Graves ejaculated, with a strong and bitter emphasis. Sandy stood again mute with astonishment, staring ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... and no revenge, No torments of foes, appease them in the land of spirits; No shoutings of brother warriors Gladden their shades; The camp of their nation is mute; They are forgotten by their women; The bright eyes of their maidens Have no tears in them: They sleep forgotten ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... mere phrase of course, when I say that the feelings with which I bear apart in the ceremony of this day are such as I find it difficult to utter in words. I do not think it strange that, when that great master of eloquence, Edmund Burke, stood where I now stand, he faltered and remained mute. Doubtless the multitude of thoughts which rushed into his mind was such as even he could not easily arrange or express. In truth there are few spectacles more striking or affecting than that which a great historical ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the murderers that they had been admitted, and loud knocks and demands for them came from without. Sicard thought all lost, and taking out his watch, begged one of the committee to give it to the first deaf mute who should come and ask for him, sure that it would be the faithful Massieu. At first the man replied that the danger was not imminent enough; but on hearing a more furious noise at the door, as if the mob were going to break in, he took the watch; and Sicard, falling on his ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... roads wind their way to all parts of the ground, along which are placed large tablets recording the events of those dreadful days in the autumn of 1863, when Americans faced Americans in bloody, determined strife. Monuments, judiciously placed, speak with a mute eloquence to the passer-by and tell of the valor displayed by some regiment or battery, or point to the spot where some lofty hero gave up his life. The whole park is a monument, however, and its definite purpose is to preserve ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... his arm in mute entreaty half-repressed, and her timid little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... in this mute parlor of the seagirt convent memories of himself. Love seldom reaches upward to solemnity; but love in the bosom of God,—is there nothing solemn there? Yes, more than a man has the right to hope for in this nineteenth century, with our manners and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... arctic gull (Cataractes parasiticus), given to make other sea-birds mute through fear, and then eat their discharge—whence it is termed dirty ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... a corner sat the shrivelled frog. She was mute, but after a short interval she uttered a sort of half-suppressed sigh. It was as if in sorrow a new life had awoke in some nook of her heart. She took a step forward, listened, advanced again, and grasping with her awkward hands the heavy bar that was placed across the ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen



Words linked to "Mute" :   unspoken, sordino, dummy, soften, inarticulate, sourdine, deaf-mute, deaf person, unarticulate, silent person, deaf-and-dumb person, acoustic device, mute swan



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com