lute definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (27)

American Heritage Dictionary (3)

noun A stringed instrument having a body shaped like a pear sliced lengthwise and a neck with a fretted fingerboard that is usually bent just below the tuning pegs.
noun A substance, such as dried clay or cement, used to pack and seal pipe joints and other connections or coat a porous surface in order to make it tight. Also called luting.
transitive verb To coat, pack, or seal with lute.

Century Dictionary (15)

A medieval musical instrument, the type of the class which has strings stretched over a resonant body and a long fretted neck, and which is played by twanging or snapping the strings with the fingers. The back of the body was either flat, as in the modern guitar, or, more often, rounded or pear-shaped, like that of a mandolin. The front of the body, or belly, had one or more sound-holes. The strings were usually of catgut, arranged in pairs of unisons, and divided into two groups, one of which lay over the finger-board, so as to be stopped upon the frets, while the other lay beside the finger-board, so as to be played unstopped for the bass. The number of strings varied considerably, as did the tuning or accordatura; a common tuning for the six upper pairs of strings was and for the bass strings The frets were arranged so as to yield semitones. The tone was sweet, but light and incapable of much variation. The construction of the instrument was not strong enough to make the tuning sure or stable. In the effort to obtain varied and striking effects, many modifications were attempted, such as the archlute, the chitarrone, the harplute, and the theorbo, in which the number of strings was increased, the bass strings attached to a second neck above the first one, or metal strings introduced. A group or family of lutes of different sizes was also elaborated for concerted music; but the mechanical and acoustical feebleness of the type prevented the results from being permanently satisfactory. Great care was often expended, however, upon the wood and the decoration of lutes, so that many of them were very beautiful in appearance. Music for the lute was written in a peculiar system of letters or numerals called tablature. Historically the lute is connected with the Egyptian nefer, and perhaps with the Hebrew nebel, and it continued in use in Europe till about 1750; its existing relatives are the guitar, the mandolin, and the banjo.
To play on or as on a lute. Knaves are men That lute and fiute fantastic tenderness. Tennyson, Princess, iv.
To play the lute. Treuthe trompede tho, and song “Te deum laudamus”; And then lutede Loue in a lowd note. Piers Plowman (C), xxi. 470.

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I find by him that my lute is a most excellent lute. — The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Nov/Dec 1661
It has been suggested that the first rift in the lute was her parody of his verses about the lovers struck by lightning; but even he, most sensitive of men, can scarcely have been seriously offended. — Lady Mary Wortley Montague
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. — British Blogs
In the dark period of history pre-dating the discovery of the potato, the lute was the refined instrument of an otherwise brutal era. — Word Magazine - Comments
The first rift in the lute was the Russian Revolution. — World's War Events $v Volume 3 Beginning with the departure of the first American destroyers for service abroad in April, 1917, and closing with the treaties of peace in 1919.

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Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

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harp · flute · guitar · fiddle · lyre · banjo · harpsichord · fife · cornet · viol · tambourine · viola

Etymologies (6)

American Heritage Dictionary (2)

Middle English, from Old French lut, from Old Provençal laut, from Arabic al-'ūd : al-, the + 'ūd, wood, branch, stem, lute.
Middle English, from Old French lut, from Latin lutum, potter's clay.

Century Dictionary (4)

from Middle English lute (= Dutch luit = Middle Low German lūte = Middle High German lūte, German latule = Swedish luta = Danish luth), from Old French lut, leut, French luth = Italian liuto, leuto, liudo (later New Greek λαοῦτον; Middle Latin lutana), from Spanish laúd, orig. *alaúd = Portuguese alaude, a lute, from Arabic al‘ūd, a lute, from al, the, + ‘ūd, a lute, harp, literally wood, timber, whence also the senses ‘stick,’ ‘staff,’ etc.
from Middle English luten; from lute , n.
from Old French lut, clay, mold, loam, dirt, French lut, lute (in chem. sense), = Italian luto, clay, mud, mire, lute, from Latin lŭtum, mud, literally ‘that which is washed down,’ from luere, wash, = Greek λούειν, wash. Cf. luster .
= French luter; from the noun: see lute , n.

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