What's the difference between mute and silence?

Mute


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To cast off; to molt.
  • (v. t. & i.) To eject the contents of the bowels; -- said of birds.
  • (n.) The dung of birds.
  • (a.) Not speaking; uttering no sound; silent.
  • (a.) Incapable of speaking; dumb.
  • (a.) Not uttered; unpronounced; silent; also, produced by complete closure of the mouth organs which interrupt the passage of breath; -- said of certain letters. See 5th Mute, 2.
  • (a.) Not giving a ringing sound when struck; -- said of a metal.
  • (n.) One who does not speak, whether from physical inability, unwillingness, or other cause.
  • (n.) One who, from deafness, either congenital or from early life, is unable to use articulate language; a deaf-mute.
  • (n.) A person employed by undertakers at a funeral.
  • (n.) A person whose part in a play does not require him to speak.
  • (n.) Among the Turks, an officer or attendant who is selected for his place because he can not speak.
  • (n.) A letter which represents no sound; a silent letter; also, a close articulation; an element of speech formed by a position of the mouth organs which stops the passage of the breath; as, p, b, d, k, t.
  • (n.) A little utensil made of brass, ivory, or other material, so formed that it can be fixed in an erect position on the bridge of a violin, or similar instrument, in order to deaden or soften the tone.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Such conditions may influence the personality of offspring of deaf-mute people.
  • (2) No wonder public discussion of this most unexpected scientific development has so far been muted and respectful, waiting for the expert community that discovered the anomaly by accident – the Opera experiment at Gran Sasso was devised to isolate different varieties of neutrino, not to test Einstein – to work out what it all means, or doesn't.
  • (3) But its protests were far more muted than the complaints which saw off plans for drills there earlier this year.
  • (4) to produce speech for the mute, man-machine communication through speech in industry control, data processing systems and uses in audiological diagnostics.
  • (5) Ten months on, reactions are likely to be more muted.
  • (6) When it transpired that he had, if not in the way he might have wanted, he and his corner leapt in the air, before the realization of the ugly mood of the crowd muted the celebrations.
  • (7) Likewise, his criticism of Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill , which proposed the death penalty for same-sex acts, was muted.
  • (8) Nobody is sure what dangerous chemical imbalance this would create but the Fiver is convinced we'd all be dust come October or November, the earth scorched, with only three survivors roaming o'er the barren landscape: Govan's answer to King Lear, ranting into a hole in the ground; a mute, wild-eyed pundit, staring without blinking into a hole in the ground; and a tall, irritable figure standing in front of the pair of them, screaming in the style popularised by Klaus Kinski, demanding they take a look at his goddamn trouser arrangement, which he has balanced here on the platform of his hand for easy perusal, or to hell with them, for they are no better than pigs, worthless, spineless pigs.
  • (9) Additional studies revealed that the muted effects of PTHrP occurred via a PTH-independent mechanism.
  • (10) Winning a majority muted that speculation without eradicating the ambitions that fuelled it.
  • (11) Eight of 9 Mute swans (Cygnus olor) untied in the river acrossing the central part of Tottori-city died within the period of 40 days of summer in 1989.
  • (12) While calling for an end to the violence and democratic reform, western and other Arab countries have mostly muted their criticism of the killings and repression in Syria for fear of destabilising the country, which plays a strategic role across the Middle East.
  • (13) Another sci-fi film, Mute, which he describes as "my love letter to Blade Runner", is already in development and will be filmed in Berlin.
  • (14) It appeared, however, that she was muting her resistance to an expanded if limited ECB role, clearing the way for central bank and International Monetary Fund interventions that might take the edge off the immediate emergency and provide a breathing space for a more systemic political response.
  • (15) Indeed, the language of the ethic of care may give a voice to nurses who previously felt morally mute.
  • (16) Lysosomal enzyme secretion in response to thrombin treatment was partially reduced in muted platelets and markedly reduced in mocha platelets.
  • (17) Sandwood Bay in Scotland Photograph: Alamy Am Buachaille, a rocky sea stack, stood guard-like to one side, the giant grey slabs which cut into the sea were bathed in frothing waves, and the dim glow of the Cape Wrath lighthouse sent out a muted white beam beyond the cliffs to my right.
  • (18) Even in the wake of Newtown, the shift toward gun safety policies has been relatively muted .
  • (19) Violence, public and domestic, in peace and war, is muted by the modulated tones of civilised life.
  • (20) If I had been seeing red upon learning the dark projections for my health, my world was returning to its known colors, now muted with that knowledge that comes eventually for everyone: that the body is not the friend you thought was.

Silence


Definition:

  • (n.) The state of being silent; entire absence of sound or noise; absolute stillness.
  • (n.) Forbearance from, or absence of, speech; taciturnity; muteness.
  • (n.) Secrecy; as, these things were transacted in silence.
  • (n.) The cessation of rage, agitation, or tumilt; calmness; quiest; as, the elements were reduced to silence.
  • (n.) Absence of mention; oblivion.
  • (interj.) Be silent; -- used elliptically for let there be silence, or keep silence.
  • (v. t.) To compel to silence; to cause to be still; to still; to hush.
  • (v. t.) To put to rest; to quiet.
  • (v. t.) To restrain from the exercise of any function, privilege of instruction, or the like, especially from the act of preaching; as, to silence a minister of the gospel.
  • (v. t.) To cause to cease firing, as by a vigorous cannonade; as, to silence the batteries of an enemy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If Cory Bernardi wasn’t currently in a period of radio silence as he contemplates his immediate political future he’d be all over this too, mining the Trumpocalypse – or in our domestic context, mining the fertile political fault line where Coalition support intersects with One Nation support.
  • (2) More evil than Clocky , the alarm clock that rolls away when you reach out to silence it, or the Puzzle Alarm , which makes you complete a simple puzzle before it'll go quiet, the Money Shredding Alarm Clock methodically destroys your cash unless you rouse yourself.
  • (3) So much of England possesses this grace and silence.
  • (4) Generally, more distant neurones (500-1300 microns) were excited for variable periods of time (3-15 min), while neurones in the vicinity of the injection site (0-500 microns) showed, after a brief period of excitation time, a long-lasting (up to 30 min) decrease in excitability or silencing of discharge, probably due to a depolarizing block and disturbances in the ionic composition of the extracellular space.
  • (5) Cameron has already announced there will be one minute’s silence on Friday at noon, a week after the start of the killing.
  • (6) In addition, he describes a type of transference interpretation that is better not made, and emphasizes the transference value of silence on the part of the analyst at certain crucial moments in the analysis.
  • (7) According to his blog, he's been acting on the advice of a friend and pursuing a course of "silence, exile and cunning", but I'm not sure a couple of years of not giving interviews to Heat qualifies.
  • (8) Transient ischemic electrical silence with Q waves in the absence of MI is a rare phenomenon and affects the anterior leads much more commonly than the inferior leads.
  • (9) But Clegg also says he is not going to be cowed into taking Cameron's vow of silence about Farage's assertion that he finds Britain unrecognisable and is uncomfortable at the lack of English spoken on commuter trains out of Charing Cross.
  • (10) The site's manifesto proclaims that "the goal … is to break down the wall of omertà and silence that protects the mafia … We call on all citizens: 'if you know something, say something'".
  • (11) That led to the second breakthrough, as the once formidable laws of omerta - silence punishable by death - cracked.
  • (12) 1:109-124, 1983) suggested that the insertion might have been selected to silence a disadvantageous bglR+ allele.
  • (13) He criticised attempts to create “safe spaces” by silencing controversial speakers such as Germaine Greer, who was recently targeted by students at the University of Cardiff for her position on transgender women.
  • (14) Von Trier, who took a " vow of silence " after being banned from the Cannes film festival in 2011 after joking about Nazism during a press conference for Melancholia, arrived at Nymphomaniac's photocall wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Persona Non Grata"; true to his word, he failed to attend the subsequent press conference where his actors and producer talked about the film.
  • (15) They were tested both in silence and against a background of continuous spoken Arabic presented at 75 dB(A).
  • (16) Our data indicate that these elements exert their effect irrespective of orientation and position, suggesting that they are silencers.
  • (17) The silence about Ji's fate was broken by his former boss, Nanjing party secretary Yang Weize.
  • (18) • The News of the World was ordered to hand over details of the secret agreement which it struck with Gordon Taylor in the earlier case as well agreements it has made withMulcaire which are alleged to have bought his silence.
  • (19) But the case is widely seen as a means of silencing the man who has become Putin's loudest critic.
  • (20) In the silence, I heard a car reversing in the courtyard and then the Þrst slow notes of the call to prayer.