: a stringed instrument having a large pear-shaped body, a vaulted back, a fretted fingerboard, and a head with tuning pegs which is often angled backward from the neck
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Noun
Dicey intonation in the final chorus and Mandane’s second-act aria aside, the group’s unity and expression was impressive, from exactly seesawing strings to Brandon Acker’s bleak, mournful lute under Artaserse’s first-act lament.—Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune, 28 June 2025 The eclectic band includes a poet, an opera singer, a violinist, a pianist and two people who play the bandura, Ukraine’s traditional 62-string instrument that looks a bit like an oversize lute.—Sal Pizarro, The Mercury News, 9 Nov. 2024 The device features hundreds of sounds and samples from ye olden days, including lutes, hurdy-gurdies, and Gregorian chants.—Time Staff, TIME, 30 Oct. 2024 The painting depicts four women in dresses surrounded by a greenish fog as one of them plays the lute.—Chris Klimek, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Sep. 2024 See All Example Sentences for lute
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Middle English, from Middle French lut, from Old Occitan laut, from Arabic al-ʽūd, literally, the wood
Verb
Middle English, from Latin lutare, from lutum mud — more at pollute
: a substance (as cement or clay) for packing a joint (as in laboratory apparatus) or coating a porous surface to produce imperviousness to gas or liquid
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