What is "lute"

Lute \Lute\, v. t. To play on a lute, or as on a lute.

Knaves are men That lute and flute fantastic tenderness.
--Tennyson.

Lute \Lute\, v. i. To sound, as a lute.
--Piers Plowman.
--Keats.

Lute \Lute\, n. [L. lutum mud, clay: cf. OF. lut.]

1. (Chem.) A cement of clay or other tenacious infusible substance for sealing joints in apparatus, or the mouths of vessels or tubes, or for coating the bodies of retorts, etc., when exposed to heat; -- called also luting.

2. A packing ring, as of rubber, for fruit jars, etc.

3. (Brick Making) A straight-edged piece of wood for striking off superfluous clay from mold.

Lute \Lute\, n. [OF. leut, F. luth; skin to Pr. la['u]t, It. li['u]to, le['u]to, Sp. la['u]d, Pg. alaude; all fr. Ar. al`[=u]d; al the + `[=u]d wood, timber, trunk or branch of a tree, staff, stick, wood of aloes, lute or harp.] (Mus.) A stringed instrument formerly much in use. It consists of four parts, namely, the table or front, the body, having nine or ten ribs or ``sides,'' arranged like the divisions of a melon, the neck, which has nine or ten frets or divisions, and the head, or cross, in which the screws for tuning are inserted. The strings are struck with the right hand, and with the left the stops are pressed.

Lute \Lute\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Luted; p. pr. & vb. n. Luting.] To close or seal with lute; as, to lute on the cover of a crucible; to lute a joint.

stringed musical instrument, late 13c., from Old French lut, leut, from Old Provençal laut, from Arabic al-'ud, the Arabian lute, literally "the wood" (source of Spanish laud, Portuguese alaude, Italian liuto), where al is the definite article. A player is a lutist (1620s) or a lutanist (c.1600, from Medieval Latin hybrid lutanista).

Etymology 1 n. A fretted stringed instrument, similar to a guitar, having a bowl-shaped body or soundbox. vb. To play on a lute, or as if on a lute. Etymology 2

n. 1 Thick sticky clay or cement used to close up a hole or gap, especially to make something air-tight. 2 A packing ring, as of rubber, for fruit jars, etc. 3 (context brickmaking English) A straight-edged piece of wood for striking off superfluous clay from mould. vb. To fix or fasten something with lute.

1. n. a substance for packing a joint or coating a porous surface to make it impervious to gas or liquid [syn: luting]

2. chordophone consisting of a plucked instrument having a pear-shaped body, a usually bent neck, and a fretted fingerboard

'''Lute ''' can refer generally to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table (in the Hornbostel–Sachs system), more specifically to any plucked string instrument with a neck (either fretted or unfretted) and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes.

The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. It is also an accompanying instrument, especially in vocal works, often realizing a basso continuo or playing a written-out accompaniment. The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any similar string instrument) is referred to as a luthier.

A lute is a plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back.

Lute or El Lute may also refer to:

Lute (from Latin Lutum, meaning mud, clay etc.) was a substance used to seal and affix apparatus employed in chemistry and alchemy, and to protect component vessels against heat damage by fire; it was also used to line furnaces. Lutation was thus the act of "cementing vessels with lute".

Lute (born July 6, 1989), is an American rapper from Charlotte, North Carolina. He his signed to J. Cole's Dreamville Records. He released his first mixtape, West1996, on February 22, 2012. His debut album, West1996 pt. 2, is set to release in 2016.