(n.) The bare end of the nose between the nostrils; -- used esp. of ruminants.
(v. t.) To wrap up in something that conceals or protects; to wrap, as the face and neck, in thick and disguising folds; hence, to conceal or cover the face of; to envelop; to inclose; -- often with up.
(v. t.) To prevent seeing, or hearing, or speaking, by wraps bound about the head; to blindfold; to deafen.
(v. t.) To wrap with something that dulls or deadens the sound of; as, to muffle the strings of a drum, or that part of an oar which rests in the rowlock.
(v. i.) To speak indistinctly, or without clear articulation.
(v. t.) Anything with which another thing, as an oar or drum, is muffled; also, a boxing glove; a muff.
(v. t.) An earthenware compartment or oven, often shaped like a half cylinder, used in furnaces to protect objects heated from the direct action of the fire, as in scorification of ores, cupellation of ore buttons, etc.
(v. t.) A small oven for baking and fixing the colors of painted or printed pottery, without exposing the pottery to the flames of the furnace or kiln.
(v. t.) A pulley block containing several sheaves.
Example Sentences:
(1) Weirdly, the muffled Doppler effects of several thousand passing SUVs was quite soothing.
(2) True diastolic pressure is usually closer to the disappearance point of Korotkoff sounds than to the muffling phase.
(3) Hence his fondness for placing the camera far away from its subjects: Hidden coolly watches as a child's small world falls apart, his cries muffled by the intervening space; and Code Unknown concludes by showing how life, likened by Haneke to a flea circus, indifferently unravels on a Paris boulevard.
(4) The presence of a muffled voice led to radiologic and indirect laryngoscopic examination confirming the diagnosis.
(5) The effect of El Niño during these years compounded the muffling effect of greenhouse gases and lead to exceptionally hot global temperatures.
(6) I heard about three or four shots fired, but they were muffled, as if taking place indoors,” one witness told Agence France-Presse.
(7) Common symptoms include fever, swollen neck, difficult swallowing, muffled voice and hyperextension of the head and neck.
(8) In places there were moans and muffled cries beneath the ruins, spurring frantic efforts to dig people out with bare hands and improvised tools.
(9) The determinations of calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus in dentine showed no significant differences between LTA, muffle furnace ashing (MFA), and wet ashing.
(10) The policemen closed the doors, but the muffled screams continued outside.
(11) The samples of the mentioned tissues were dried and ashed in the muffle furnace.
(12) Questions will undoutedly be asked about Brown's vocal capabilities – once described by Guardian critic Alexis Petridis as "a muffled, gloomy honk, like a despondent goose wearing a balaclava" – and whether the band, now in middle-age, will be able to capture the heady excitement of their early days.
(13) For some it sounded muffled and far away, as though somewhere in the distance a big balloon had popped.
(14) Once again, Vince Cable is a rather lonely prophet worrying where this will lead, but this time a voice of warning somewhat muffled by collective responsibility.
(15) Fabricant, who was strongly involved in the Tory campaign in Eastleigh, tweeted: "The Conservative voice is muffled and not crisp.
(16) But instead of a traditional riot or at least some minor destruction, the place was filled with well-behaved individuals, talking in the "inside voices" with muffled jubilation (even when the US won!).
(17) Abnormal or muffled heart sounds associated with pericarditis and epicarditis was the most common sequela, occurring in 40 cases.
(18) The polite approach of London Citizens has so far yielded muffled responses, but the issue will be raised at a November board meeting: if there is no decisive yes, expect the gloves to come off, and more direct action, including a shoppers' boycott.
(19) Inadequate velopharyngeal function, whether congenital or subsequent to palatal repair, may be masked by the presence of other speech problems in this syndrome, particularly by the "muffled" voice quality which appears to be associated with an elevated and retracted tongue posture.
(20) Extreme sore throat, pooling of oral secretions, muffled voice, and elevated temperature were uncommon.
Obtuse
Definition:
(superl.) Not pointed or acute; blunt; -- applied esp. to angles greater than a right angle, or containing more than ninety degrees.
(superl.) Not having acute sensibility or perceptions; dull; stupid; as, obtuse senses.
(superl.) Dull; deadened; as, obtuse sound.
Example Sentences:
(1) Extensive research among the Afghan National Army – 68 focus groups – and US military personnel alike concluded: "One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group [the US soldiers] generally views the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals.
(2) Vessel attempted: Left anterior descending (3), circumflex (4), obtuse marginal (2), diagonal (1), right coronary artery (3), and internal thoracic artery (1).
(3) The lesions classified as distal were located in left anterior descending (LAD) artery beyond the origin of second diagonal (D2), left circumflex (LCx) after the main obtuse marginal (OM) and right coronary artery (RCA) after the origin of acute marginal branch.
(4) The vascular diameter of obtuse marginal coronary arteries was determined by means of gated color arteriography (injection of patent blue dye).
(5) There were still quite a few Marxists at Oxford in those days – Terry Eagleton and his clique were seemingly bolted to the same table in the King’s Arms the entire time I was an undergraduate – but while I was silly and naive enough to believe in the purifying, energising effects of violent revolution, I wasn’t obtuse enough to think of dialectical materialism as anything more than a powerful heuristic.
(6) An obtuse chest wall intersecting angle and the length of the neighboring borders of the tumor and chest wall were of limited value.
(7) They analyze the radiographs according to thorough criterions, described in the text, and come to the conclusion that intrahepatic biliary ducts in cirrhotic livers present serious alterations, represented by distorted ducts with focal stenoses, nodular impressions, wall irregularities, increase of the number of obtuse angles and poor peripheral filling, which confer a disharmonic aspect to the intra-hepatic biliary ducts of these organs.
(8) Such an ill-informed and illogical standpoint is a worrying sign of ideologically driven obtuseness.
(9) By depressing the fundus of the stomach, the angle of His was made more obtuse and the flap valve component eliminated.
(10) 7) As a result of cephalometric diagnosis, the nasion appeared to be protruded, therefore maxillary and mandibular seemed to be relatively retracted, and the gonial angle was obtuse.
(11) On cooling, there is a substantial change in the unit cell beta-angle from obtuse (93.3 degrees) to acute (85.5 degrees) which involves a shearing motion of 2.5 A between adjacent molecular layers.
(12) Patient 2 (62-year-old woman) underwent simultaneous operation of both right nephrectomy and triple aortocoronary bypass grafting (saphenous vein grafts to obtuse marginal branch and right coronary artery, and left internal mammary artery to left anterior descending artery).
(13) Laser angioplasty of the vein graft to the obtuse marginal branch reduced the first of three sequential lesions from 60% to 40%, the second lesion from 90% to none and the third from 60% to 20% without the need for balloon angioplasty.
(14) The subaortal cone and deferent part of the left ventricular axes make an obtuse angle; the axes of the subpulmonary and subaortal cones have a cross direction.
(15) In comparison with white norms, the Chinese nose was less prominent (P < .01), the nasolabial angle was less obtuse (P < .01), both the upper and lower lips were more protrusive (P < .05), the upper lip curvature was greater (P < .01), and the soft-tissue chin thickness was less (P < .05).
(16) The cleft group differed from the control group in several major respects: (1) Their over-all growth trend showed a more downward or vertical direction; (2) The cranial base angle was more flattened; (3) The maxilla was smaller and was located in a more posterior and upward position; (4) Ramal height was shorter and the gonial angle was more obtuse.
(17) The obstacle could yet be an inability on the part of so many enthusiasts to work together, and an obtuse academic dismissal of a technology that can release to the world a new delight in the past.
(18) A difference in the appearance of the hypothalamic and infundibular recesses in the primary empty sella group with SVS herniation (dilated recesses and formation of an obtuse angle) and in the secondary empty sella group with SVS herniation (nondilated recesses and formation of an acute angle) was observed.
(19) An obtuse or sharp angle between duct planes can lead to better performance of a particular labyrinth because the "external impulses" in the different ducts may amplify or compensate each other.
(20) The nasolabial angle became more obtuse increasing from 80.7 degrees to 90.7 degrees.