lute
/l(j)uːt//lut/
lute noun: a fretted stringed instrument, similar to the guitar, having a bowl-shaped body or soundbox; any of a wide variety of chordophones with a pear-shaped body and a neck whose upper surface is in the same plane as the soundboard, with strings along the neck and parallel to the soundboard.
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Noun (1)
lute (plural lutes)
- A fretted stringed instrument, similar to the guitar, having a bowl-shaped body or soundbox; any of a wide variety of chordophones with a pear-shaped body and a neck whose upper surface is in the same plane as the soundboard, with strings along the neck and parallel to the soundboard.
Verb (1)
lute (third-person singular simple present lutes, present participle luting, simple past and past participle luted)
- To play on a lute, or as if on a lute.
- Knaves are men / That lute and flute fantastic tenderness.1847, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page number, or |part=Prologue, I to VII, or conclusion)”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
- in the air , her new voice luting soft1820, John Keats, “(please specify the poem)”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC
Noun (2)
lute (countable and uncountable, plural lutes)
- Thick sticky clay or cement used to close up a hole or gap, especially to make something air-tight.
- He employed a mixture of flour and white of egg spread upon a linen cloth to cement cracked glass vessels, and used other lutes for similar purposes.1830, Thomas Thomson (chemist), The History of Chemistry, volume 1, page 41
- A packing ring, as of rubber, for fruit jars, etc.
- A straight-edged piece of wood for striking off superfluous clay from earth.
Verb (2)
lute (third-person singular simple present lutes, present participle luting, simple past and past participle luted)
- To fix or fasten something with lute.
- To protect everything till it dried, a man […] luted a big blue paper cap from a cracker, with meringue-cream, low down on Jevon's forehead.1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘A Friend's Friend’, Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio Society, published 2005, page 179
Proper noun capitalized: Lute
Lute (plural Lutes)
- A surname.
lute meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu
lute in Hindi
- stringed instrument
- वीणा vīṇā
lute in Tamil
- stringed instrument
- வீணை vīṇai
lute in Urdu
- چنگ, عود, وینا
lute in Telugu
- stringed instrument
- వీణ vīṇa
More languagesFewer languages
- lute in Malayalam
- ഒരിനം വീണ, ഒരു കമ്പിവാദ്യം, വല്ലകി, വിപഞ്ചിക
- lute in Kannada
- ಚವಡಿಕೆ, ಚವುಡಿಕೆ, ಚೌಡಿಕೆ, ಚಮುಂಡಿಕೆ
- lute in Gujarati
- તંતુવાદ્ય tantuvādya, વીના vīnā
- lute in Sanskrit
- तन्त्री tantrī
- lute in Tagalog
- laud
- lute in Arabic
- عُود ʕūd
- lute in Malay
- kecapi
- lute in Persian
- لوت lut, بربط barbat
- lute in Thai
- พิณ pin, กระจับปี่ grà-jàp-bpìi
- lute in Vietnamese
- đàn luýt
Examples of lute in a sentence
- Sir Anthony got out a lute and began to strum, pausing every so often to adjust the tension on the catguts.
- Her greatest pleasures were playing her lute or virginals, reading or sewing.
- The gimbri or sintir is a three stringed rectangular lute from Morocco commonly used by Gnawan musicians.
Forms of lute
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | lutes |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | lutes |
| present participle | luting |
| past participle | luted |
| past | luted |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Lutes |
Origin of lute
From Middle French lut (modern luth), from Old French leüt, probably from Old Occitan laüt, from Arabic اَلْعُود (al-ʕūd, “wood”) (probably representing an Andalusian Arabic or North African pronunciation). Doublet of oud, lavta, and laouto.
From Old French lut, ultimately from Latin lutum (“mud”).
* English surname of Old Norse origin, from lútr (“stooping”). * German surname, derived from an old Germanic name from *liudi (“people, tribe”).
Words formed from lute
Phrases with lute
Words that rhyme with lute
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- cute
- moot
- overshoot
- recruit
- salute
- volute
- dispute
- impute
- pollute
- scoot
- snoot
- substitute
- chute
- depute
- dilute
- hoot
- loot
- pursuit
- reboot
- scute
- uproot
- Beirut
- cahoot
- Clute
- convolute
- zoot
- ablute
- Aleut
- argute
- astute
- beaut
- bruit
- compute
- coot
- doot
- en route
- glout
- jute
- minute
- newt
- poot
- refute
- repute
- resolute
- 'tute
- angel lute
- butte
- cheroot
Questions about lute
- What does lute mean?
- Lute means a fretted stringed instrument, similar to the guitar, having a bowl-shaped body or soundbox; any of a wide variety of chordophones with a pear-shaped body and a neck whose upper surface is in the same plane as the soundboard, with strings along the neck and parallel to the soundboard.
- What is lute in Hindi?
- Lute in Hindi is वीणा (vīṇā). See Lute meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is lute?
- Lute can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce lute?
- Lute is pronounced /l(j)uːt/ (UK).
- What is the plural of lute?
- The plural of lute is lutes.
Words near lute in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lute (page history and authors); Lute (page history and authors); lute (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lute (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lute (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-lute.ogg, En-US pronunciation of "lute".ogg.
Cite this entry: “lute.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lute. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.