sb. and a. Also 6 surdine. [ad. It. sordina, -dino (= Sp. sordina, Pg. surdina), or a. F. *sordine SOURDINE, f. L. surd-us deaf, mute: see SURD a.]
A. sb. † 1. A small pipe or mouthpiece placed in a trumpet or bugle in order to muffle or reduce the sound; a trumpet fitted with this. Obs.
1591. Garrard’s Art Warre, 343. Lette him make it [sc. the alarm] secretly and without striking vp the Drums, or sounding Trompets, but rather vse Drum stickes and Surdines.
1611. Cotgr., Sourdine, a Sordine, or a kind of hoarse, or low-sounding Trumpet.
2. Mus. = MUTE sb.1 4 a.
The Ital. form sordino is entered in Busby Dict. Mus. (1801) and some recent Dicts.
1776. Burney, Hist. Mus. (1789), III. i. 16. The several parts are so thick … that it [the poliphant] has not more tone than a mute or violin with a sordine.
1856. Mrs. C. Clarke, trans. Berlioz’ Instrument., 16/1. The custom is, when employing sordines, to cause them to be used by all the band of stringed instruments.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2246/1. Sordine.… A little implement placed on the bridge of a stringed instrument, in order to deaden the sonorousness and give it a mournful sound.
B. adj. † 1. Sordine trumpet (see A. 1). Obs.–1
1635. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Banish’d Virg., 106. Unbraced drummes, sordine trumpets,… and mournefull musick.
2. Muffled, subdued. rare–1.
1894. ‘G. Egerton,’ Keynotes, 127. Mutter, mutter—a sordine epic of Hades.
