Home › Glossary › Letter L

Lute

Musical Instrument
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A pear-shaped stringed instrument with a fretted neck, prominent in Renaissance music

Detailed Definition
The lute symbolizes courtly love, refined artistry, and the Renaissance ideal of harmony in poetry; its delicate, intimate tones evoke sonnets, private devotion, and the golden age of lyricism, often representing the poet-musician’s quest for beauty and balance in a complex world.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s Orsino opens Twelfth Night with lute imagery: “If music be the food of love, play on”; The lute’s pear body cradles Renaissance melancholy; “Lute strings snap—sonnets bleed”; In metaphysical poetry, the lute symbolizes cosmic harmony: “Spheres turn to lute notes in God’s silent concert.”
Additional Notes
The lute, with its pear-shaped body and fretted neck, was central to Renaissance and Baroque art song; its delicate, intimate tone suits poetry about love, melancholy, or intellectual refinement—ideal for exploring the instrument as symbol of the poet-musician, the tension between ornament and essence, or the plucked string as metaphor for the heart’s vibration.
Also Known As
Oud (related but distinct) theorbo (historical variant) archlute
Skip to main content