Muffled

Definition: Muffled

Muffled

Adjective

1. Being or made softer or less loud or clear; "the dull boom of distant breaking waves"; "muffled drums"; "the muffled noises of the street"; "muted trumpets".

2. Wrapped up especially for protection or secrecy; "children muffled almost to the eyebrows".

Date "muffled" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1591. (references)

Synonyms: Muffled

Synonyms: dull (adj), muted (adj), softened (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Interment	Funeral, funeral rite, funeral solemnity; kneel, passing bell, tolling; dirge. (lamentation); cypress; orbit, dead march, muffled drum; mortuary, undertaker, mute; elegy; funeral, funeral oration, funeral sermon; epitaph.
Latency Implication	Indirect, crooked, inferential; by inference, by implication; implicit; constructive; allusive, covert, muffled; steganographic; understood, underhand, underground; delitescent, concealed.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Muffled

English words defined with "muffled": dull ♦ muted ♦ quality ♦ softened ♦ timber, timbre, tone. (references)

Specialty definitions using "muffled": Bells ♦ Drum ♦ Owl. (references)

Domain

Usage

Screenplays

They were low and muffled, the sounds of pain and anguish. (Sleepers; writing credit: Barry Levinson)

If you hear muffled screams, consider that a request for a beam out. (Star Trek: Voyager; writing credit: Douglas Day Stewart)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Muffled Drums (reference) Muffled Drums and Mustard Spoons: Cecil County, Maryland, 1860-1865 (reference) Muffled drums; the news media in Africa (reference) Muffled Echoes (reference) Muffled Voices: Women in Modern Indian Theatre (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Play	Caption	Play	Caption
	Clink; dull; jingle; jingling; muffled; muted; toned-down; dim.		Muffled; muted; silenced; murder.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Title	Author	Quote
Scarlet Letter	Hawthorne, Nathaniel	An unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon.
Grapes of Wrath	Steinbeck, John	Then the roosters crowed, and their voices were muffled, and the people stirred restlessly in their beds and wanted the morning.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Sounds may become distorted or muffled, and it may be difficult for the person to understand speech. (references)
Business		Muffled machine cabs, materials which absorb some of the vibrations and seats which can be adjusted to the shape of the operator's body are only some of the solutions being applied on a large scale. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

"Muffled" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 63.29% of the time. "Muffled" is used about 316 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	63.29%	200	21,580
Lexical Verb (past participle)	23.73%	75	38,535
Lexical Verb (past tense)	11.71%	37	56,631
Noun (proper)	1.27%	4	175,879
Total	100.00%	316	N/A

Expressions using "muffled": muffled boom ♦ muffled sound. Additional references.
Hypenated Usage
	Ending with "muffled": curtain-muffled, sleep-muffled, well-muffled.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "muffled"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		i mbytur (drowned, hollow, muted, strangulated, suffocated, throttled, wrecked), i mbështjellur (involved). (various references)

Arabic		‏مكبت, ‏معصب العينين. (various references)

Bulgarian		увит (tortile), претъпен, потиснат (heavy, melancholy, oppressed, pent, sullen, under the weather). (various references)

Chinese		裹住 (Muffle, Muffling). (various references)

Finnish		vaimea (subdued). (various references)

French		enveloppé, étouffé (muzzled). (various references)

German		umhüllt (encases, infolds, muffles), hüllte ein (enshrouded, wrapped). (various references)

Greek		υπόκωφος (hollow). (various references)

Hungarian		burkolt (covert, hooded, implied, insinuating, oblique, veiled). (various references)

Indonesian		redam (dim, faint, hushed, vague). (various references)

Italian		spento (dead, dull, erased, extinct, faded, off, out, sad, switched off, turned off), smorzato (muted), ottuso (blunt, dense, dolt, dull, fatwitted, logy, obtuse, pointless, slow, slow witted, stuffy, thick, witless). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		含み声 (muffled voice). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		ふくみ�"え (muffled voice). (various references)

Korean		싸�" (Cased). (various references)

Manx		drummaghyn plooghit (muffled drums). (various references)

Pig Latin		uffledmay

Portuguese		agasalhado. (various references)

Romanian		rostit printre dinţi, învelit, înfofolit, înfãşurat (convolute), înãbuşit (pent up, restrained, smoldering, smouldering, thumping). (various references)

Russian		укутанный, заглушенный (dead end). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		prigušen (muted), potmuo (sunken). (various references)

Spanish		sordo (deaf, dull, hollow, muted, surd, tone deaf), apagado (burnt-out, dead, dull, extinct, lacklustre, murmurous, muted, off, out, sad, thick). (various references)

Swedish		dov (aching, dull, hallow, hollow, obtuse, stifled). (various references)

Thai		ซึ่งไ�"้ยินไม่ชั�". (various references)

Turkish		örtülü (buried, clad, coated, covered, covert, mantled, masked, shut, submerged, submersed, thick with, under cover, veiled, wrapped). (various references)

Ukrainian		закутаний (shrouded), загорнутий (jacketed), заглушений (obtuse). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	surdae, surde, surdi, surdo, surdorum, surdos, surdum, surdus. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words ending with "muffled": unmuffled. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Muffled" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: huffled, miffle, Morfeld, moufflon, muffet, muffledly, mufled. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "muffled" (pronounced mu"fuld)
5	-u" f u l d	reshuffled, ruffled, scuffled, shuffled, unruffled.
4	-f u l d	baffled, rifled, scaffold, stifled, waffled.
3	-u l d	addled, ambled, angled, annulled, assembled, babbled, backpedaled, barreled, battled, bedeviled, bedraggled, befuddled, belittled, bespectacled, bevelled, bicycled, boggled, bottled, bridled, bristled, bubbled, buckled, bundled, bungled, cabled, canceled, cancelled, channeled, chiseled, chortled, chronicled, chuckled, circled, cobbled, coddled, commingled, corbelled, counseled, coupled, crackled, credentialed, crippled, crumbled, crumpled, cuddled, cycled, dabbled, dangled, dazzled, dialed, dibbled, dimpled, disabled, disassembled, disgruntled, disheveled, dismantled, doubled, dribbled, dueled, dwindled, embattled, embezzled, emerald, empaneled, enabled, enameled, encircled, enfeebled, entangled, entitled, equaled, fabled, fiddled, fizzled, flanneled, fondled, frazzled, freckled, fueled, fuelled, fumbled, funneled, gambled, garbled, giggled, gobbled, grappled, grizzled, grumbled, haggled, handled, hassled, heckled, Herald, hobbled, huddled, humbled, hustled, idled, impaneled, imperiled, initialed, intermingled, jangled, jostled, juggled, jumbled, kindled, knuckled, labeled, labelled, ladled, leveled, levelled, libeled, mangled, manhandled, marbled, marshaled, marshalled, marveled, mingled, mishandled, mislabeled, modeled, mottled, muddled, mumbled, muscled, muzzled, needled, nestled, nettled, newfangled, nibbled, ogled, paddled, paneled, parceled, pedaled, pedalled, peddled, penciled, peopled, pickled, principled, pummeled, puzzled, quadrupled, quarreled, quintupled, rambled, rankled, rattled, raveled, reassembled, recycled, redoubled, refueled, rekindled, remodeled, resembled, resettled, reveled, riddled, rippled, rivaled, rumbled, rumpled, saddled, sampled, scrambled, scribbled, scuttled, settled, shackled, shoveled, shriveled, shuttled, signaled, signalled, singled, sizzled, smuggled, snarled, spangled, sparkled, speckled, spiraled, sprinkled, squabbled, squirreled, stapled, startled, stenciled, straddled, straggled, strangled, struggled, stumbled, subtitled, swindled, tabled, tackled, tangled, tasseled, tattled, throttled, tickled, tinkled, titled, toggled, toppled, totaled, totalled, trampled, traveled, travelled, trebled, trembled, trickled, tripled, troubled, trundled, tumbled, tussled, unbridled, unlabeled, unprincipled, unraveled, unrivaled, unsettled, unshackled, untrammeled, untroubled, wangled, whistled, whittled, widdled, wobbled, wrangled, wrestled, wrinkled.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "d-e-f-f-l-m-u"
	-1 letter: duffel, duffle, flumed, luffed, muffed, muffle.
	-2 letters: flued, flume, fumed, muled.
	-3 letters: delf, duel, duff, feud, fled, flue, fuel, fume, leud, lude, luff, meld, muff, mule.
	-4 letters: del, due, eff, eld, elf, elm, emf, emu, fed, fem, feu, flu, fud, led, leu, lum, med, mel, mud.
	-5 letters: de, ed, ef, el, em, me, mu, um.
	Words containing the letters "d-e-f-f-l-m-u"
	+2 letters: mufflered, unmuffled.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.