lute
/lut/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.87 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A fretted stringed instrument, similar to the guitar, having a bowl-shaped body or soundbox; any of a wide variety of chordophones with a pear-shaped body and a neck whose upper surface is in the same plane as the soundboard, with strings along the neck and parallel to the soundboard.
verb
To play on a lute, or as if on a lute.
noun
Thick sticky clay or cement used to close up a hole or gap, especially to make something air-tight.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A straight-edged piece of wood for striking off superfluous clay from earth.
Countable; Uncountable
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "Knaves are men / That lute and flute fantastic tenderness."
- "in the air , her new voice luting soft"
- "He employed a mixture of flour and white of egg spread upon a linen cloth to cement cracked glass vessels, and used other lutes for similar purposes."
- "To protect everything till it dried, a man […] luted a big blue paper cap from a cracker, with meringue-cream, low down on Jevon's forehead."
Etymology
From Middle French lut (modern luth), from Old French leüt, probably from Old Occitan laüt, from Arabic اَلْعُود (al-ʕūd, “wood”) (probably representing an Andalusian Arabic or North African pronunciation). Doublet of oud, lavta, and laouto.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /lut/
- British English: /l(j)uːt/