muffled, ppl. a.
(ˈmʌf(ə)ld)
[f. muffle v.1 + -ed1.]
1. Wrapped or covered up, esp. about the face, for the purpose of concealment or disguise.
| 1593 Shakes. Lucr. 768 O comfort-killing night!..Blinde muffled bawd. 1599 B. Jonson Ev. Man out of Hum. ii. iv, The muffled fates. 1651 Cleveland Poems 29 His muffled feature speaks him a recluse. 1813 Scott Rokeby vi. x, A muffled horseman late Had left it at the castle-gate. 1898 J. B. Wollocombe From Morn till Eve iv. 35 Muffled figures, with shawls wrapped over mouth and nose. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1599 B. Jonson Cynthia's Rev. i. iv, Yet will our muffled thought Choose rather not to see it, then auoide it. 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xxvi, The Indians would not fail to notice so many muffled tracks. 1870–74 J. Thomson City Dreadf. Nt. xvi. i, Keen as lightning through a muffled sky. |
† c. Blinded. Obs. rare—1.
| 1629 T. Adams Medit. Creed Wks. 1153 Muffled Pagans know there is a God, but not what this God is. |
2. Wearing or provided with ‘muffles’ or boxing-gloves. Also dial. wearing ‘muffles’ or mittens.
| 1721 Kelly Sc. Prov. 50 A mufled Cat was never a good Hunter. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones xiii. v, He was..a match for one of the first-rate boxers, and could..have beaten all the muffled graduates of Mr. Broughton's school. |
3. Wrapped up so as to deaden sound.
| 1762 Goldsm. Nash 178 And the muffled bells rung a peal of Bob Major. 1813 Byron Giaour 42 Then stealing with the muffled oar,..Rush the night-prowlers on the prey. 1839 Longfellow Psalm of Life iv, Our hearts..like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Muffled drum, the sound is thus damped at funerals: passing the spare cord, which is made of drummer's plait (to carry the drum over the shoulder), twice through the snares or cords which cross the lower diameter of the drum. 1872 Holland Marb. Proph., etc. 84 But they knock with muffled hammers. |
b. transf. Of a sound: Deadened as if proceeding from something ‘muffled’.
| 1837 Lytton E. Maltrav. i. ii, His ear..caught the faint muffled sound of creeping footsteps. 1846 W. Blunt Use & Abuse Ch. Bells 5 Persons..who ring ‘the muffled’ or ‘the merry peal’ for the rich man's sorrow or rejoicing. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. xlix, The sorrow..Whose muffled motions blindly drown The bases of my life in tears. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. viii. 57 A low muffled thunder resounding through the valley. 1860 W. H. Walshe Dis. Lungs (ed. 3) 77 M. Woillez, correctly distinguishing this tonelessness, from ordinary so-called dulness, invents for it the title obtusion of sound—the phrase muffled tone will perhaps convey the idea. 1878 H. S. Wilson Alp. Ascents i. 16, I heard a muffled stir. |
4. dial. Of a bird, esp. a hen: Having a top-knot or tuft of feathers on its head, or feathers protruding from under the throat; also, covered with feathers. Cf. muffed a.
| 1845 [see muffed a.]. 1888 Sheffield Gloss., Muffled, covered with feathers. A fowl is said to be muffled down to its feet. |
5. Of glass (see muffle v.1 5).
Hence ˈmuffledness nonce-wd., the state or condition of being muffled (in quot. of sound).
| 1851 H. Melville Whale xxi, He breathed with a sort of muffledness. |