Crossword clues for muteness
muteness
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Muteness \Mute"ness\, n. The quality or state of being mute; speechlessness.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1580s, from mute (adj.) + -ness.
Wiktionary
n. The characteristic of being mute.
WordNet
n. a refusal to speak when expected; "his silence about my contribution was surprising" [syn: silence]
Wikipedia
Muteness or mutism is an inability to speak often caused by a speech disorder, hearing loss, or surgery. Someone who is mute may be so due to the unwillingness to speak in certain social situations.
Usage examples of "muteness".
Day after day he struggled against this muteness until he dared not attempt speech at all because it was worse to imagine that he had lost the ability to talk altogether.
In fact, even such a curious detail as the muteness of little Sanya has not been invented by me.
There they lay in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness.
His muteness was respected, for it was not a rare thing for a pilgrim, or a sinner who was expiating a penance, to take a vow of silence.
Other things, even closer to perfect muteness, their animating spirit departed: a hand-carved table that had sat in a corner of the Kai's sleeping chamber, the oil lamp from the niche in the stone wall, a sequence of ear ornaments, each wrapped in feather-edged paper, each more elaborate and bejewelled than the one before, all of them signifying the mortal woman's ascent through the hierarchy of her people's faith.
Prison was a species of muteness, too, but she had rallied her troops and kept them busy marking the hours of each day with worship, discussing the finer points of theology and the seven arts and sciences and memorizing the histories that they knew and the three books they possessed, her History, the Vita of St.