Definition of "sordine" []

• A mute for musical instruments. For example, the mute instrument for the violin or the damper on the pianoforte. (noun)

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• "But with or without the sordine Hamsun's production is equally seductive, equally entrancing and compelling."
• "Dr. Burney states that it has no more tone than a violin with a sordine."
• "Having become sensitive to these delicacies, the painter, instead of uniting the extremes of the gamut, simply selects the beginning of it; his entire picture, except in one point, is in shadow; the concert he offers us is a continuous sordine in which now and then occurs some brilliant passage."