distune
English
Etymology
Verb
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- (transitive) To put (something) out of tune.
- a. 1451 John Lydgate, The Lyf of Our Lady, Westminster: William Caxton, 1484, Chapter 20,[1]
- […] the clapper of his distuned belle
- May cankre soone I mene his false tonge
- Be doumbe for euer & neuer efte to be runge
- 1587, Robert Southwell, An Epistle of Comfort to the Reverend Priestes, Paris, Chapter 2, pp. 23-24,[2]
- And as the Musician neyther streyneth the string of his instrument to hye, for feare of breaking, nor lette[t]h it to low for feare of distuning. So god […] will keepe a meane neyther suffering vs to be carelesselye secure, nor driuing vs for want of comforte to despayre.
- 1871, Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Litany of Nations” in Songs before Sunrise, London: F. S. Ellis, p. 73,[3]
- […] thy voice distuned and marred of modulation;
- 1990, Robin Maconie, The Concept of Music, Oxford: Clarendon Press, Chapter 12, p. 105,[4]
- A judicious distuning, applied to piano tone, has the effect of introducing a wavering quality which the ear interprets as a pleasing liveliness of tone.
- a. 1451 John Lydgate, The Lyf of Our Lady, Westminster: William Caxton, 1484, Chapter 20,[1]
- (transitive, figurative) To cause (something) not to be in harmony or to be poorly adjusted.
- Synonym: untune
- 1654, Thomas Jackson, A Treatise of the Primaeval Estate of the First Man, Section 2, Chapter 13, in An Exact Collection of the Works of Doctor Jackson, London: Timothy Garthwait, p. 3037,[5]
- But by eating of the forbidden fruit, and losse of Paradise, his very substance was corrupted and deprived of Life Spiritual: and all his Powers or Faculties not only corrupted, but distuned.
- 1802, Charles Lamb, John Woodvil, Act IV, in The Works of Charles Lamb, London: C. and J. Ollier, 1818, Volume 1, p. 146,[6]
- O most distuned, and distempered world, where sons talk their aged fathers into their graves!
- 1922, Thomas Hardy, “Side by Side” in Late Lyrics and Earlier, with Many Other Verses, London: Macmillan, p. 96,[7]
- They seemed united
- As groom and bride,
- Who’d not communed
- For many years—
- Lives from twain spheres
- With hearts distuned.