Definition of "sourdine" []

• 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. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "En sourdine posted by Cooper Renner in beauty, music | * | comment"
• "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;"
• "Or a ladyeater may perhaps have casualised as you temptoed her … la sourdine: Of your plates?"