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Muffler   /mˈəflər/   Listen
Muffler

noun
1.
A tubular acoustic device inserted in the exhaust system that is designed to reduce noise.  Synonym: silencer.
2.
A scarf worn around the neck.
3.
A device that decreases the amplitude of electronic, mechanical, acoustical, or aerodynamic oscillations.  Synonym: damper.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Muffler" Quotes from Famous Books



... trimmings were all enameled black. The headlight was a powerful electric one, with a black cap over the lens. With great interest Henry examined the spark- and gasoline-controls, the motor itself, and finally the muffler, which was of the most improved variety. He looked in the gasoline-tank and found it full. The oil-tank was brimming. Every moving part had been ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... report from below, which the neighbors afterwards said they heard, but considered gas in a muffler, which happens often and sounds like a shot. There was then a sort of low growl and somebody fell with a thump. Then the cook ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... before they have said it; and we call ourselves sensible people! Martin Luther once said, 'It is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience.' But Ahab put Micaiah in prison; and we shut up our consciences in a dungeon, and put a gag in their mouths, and a muffler over the gag, that we may hear them say no word, because we know that what we are doing, and we are doggedly determined to do, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Cora declared. "There—just look at that oil," as she collected some in a funnel. "This would have made the muffler smoke like a locomotive." ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose

... and rosy gentleman who, as soon as he had got well within the room, began to unswathe his neck from a voluminous white silk muffler, now completed his task and advancing upon Peggie solemnly kissed her on both cheeks, held her away from him, looked at her, kissed her again, and then patted her on the shoulder. This done, he shook hands solemnly with Mr. Tertius, bowed to ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... of the North End of Boston, with overcoat buttoned to the chin and a muffler around his neck, a fur cap drawn down over his ears to exclude the biting frost of midwinter, was going his rounds. He saw no revelers in the streets, nor belated visitors ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... melancholy figure, walks with dragging steps and drooping head, as one who is already profoundly sorry for himself. Lord John Roxton steps briskly, and his thin, eager face beams forth between his hunting-cap and his muffler. As for myself, I am glad to have got the bustling days of preparation and the pangs of leave-taking behind me, and I have no doubt that I show it in my bearing. Suddenly, just as we reach the vessel, there is a shout behind us. It is Professor Challenger, who had promised to see ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... arrived with a fanfare of horn-blowing, the chauffeur evidently having had instructions to call lots of attention to himself. Turner came out at once, with the lower part of his face protected against the morning chill by a muffler. Being about the same height, and in that Syrian uniform, he looked remarkably like Grim, except that he did not imitate the stride ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... her hand and glided hurriedly through the passage until she reached a door, which she opened. By the light of a dying fire he could see it was her bedroom. Lighting a candle on the mantel, she looked eagerly in his face as he threw aside his muffler and opened his coat. It disclosed a spare, youthful figure, and a thin, weak face that a budding mustache only seemed to make still more immature. For an instant brother and sister gazed at each other. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... were a chief of some kind. This belief was confirmed when one of the other tribesmen approached the man in the long cloak and addressed something to him with a low obeisance. Frank had by this time put the muffler in operation and throttled down the engine so that the aeroplane swung in lazy circles above the Patagonians, entirely unnoticed ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... Miss Johnson was transferred in this Christmas week from the neckwear to the muffler department on the first floor of one of the cheaper stores. All the girls stood all day long—from eight to twelve and from one to eight at night on the first days; from one at noon to ten and eleven at night, as the season progressed; ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... claim the muffler, D, for the purpose of deadening the sound of the escaping air ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... ain't no panthers in Westchester," Jimmie would reassure himself. And in the distance the roar of an automobile climbing a hill with the muffler open would seem to suggest he was right. But still Jimmie remembered once before he had knelt at that same spring, and that when he raised his eyes he had faced a crouching panther. "Mebbe dad told me it happened to grandpop," Jimmie would explain, "or I dreamed it, or, mebbe, I read ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis

... Pond gave a wild whoop and, breaking away from his fellows, dashed towards the three strangers. In a moment the overcoat and muffler were thrown aside and the hat knocked off, revealing the fair-haired ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... felt a thrill of dismay at the thought that some day she, too, would be frail and bent, and wear a cap and mittens, and have rheumatic joints, and attacks of bronchitis if by chance she was so imprudent as to go out without putting on goloshes, a woollen "crossover," and a big silk muffler beneath her mantle. To one- and-twenty it seemed an appalling prospect, and one to be shunted into the background with ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... There was only one shell hole in it, but some previous tenant had stopped it up with a bit of sacking. My word, I was tired! I rolled myself round with straw, and still retaining all my clothes, greatcoat, balaclava, muffler, trench boots, I ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather

... had everybody for miles around beating the woods for them all night long. Well, sir, that boy had taken off his coat and put it on her, and his stockings too, and he had even removed his shirt to make a sort of muffler to wrap around her throat, because she always had sore throats and croup when she was a child. And when the men found them, he was sitting up against a tree sound asleep, almost frozen stiff, with her in his lap and his cold little arms around her. ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... tippet," came from Songbird, and guided the muffler free of the bob. Then Hans took up the ends and tied them ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)

... sorts like a schoolboy, though the Government gives quite enough, and good solid food too. I had a parcel from Aunt H——yesterday, with one of her usual kind letters; I seized the woollen cap for myself, and I am quite sure it is much better for sleeping in in the trenches than the muffler you knitted for me, as the ends always get entangled in the mud of that rather dreadful place. By the way, when you have time, please send me a piece of shaving soap. I have stuck to shaving steadily, and propose doing so unless you want me to grow a beard! I was very much surprised when, after ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... trail they left we could trace where they ran the machine outside. They gauged its ground run just right. They must have put on the muffler, for the watchman heard no sounds. Then ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood

... outside the harbour," announced Cornelius James, submitting impatiently to his nurse's inexplicable manipulation of the muffler round his neck. "I'm never sick, though," he confided to a small and rather frightened-looking mite of a girl who clung to her nurse's hand and looked out to the distant ship with some trepidation in her blue eyes. "My daddy's a Captain," continued Cornelius James; "and I'm never ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... command from Jerry, just as the boat, muffler cut out, the engine at top speed, and volleying revolutions and deafening explosions, seemed to leap ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... door from the inner apartments and comes into the kitchen. He is carelessly dressed and sleepy-looking as if just out of bed, wears a muffler and glasses, and appears to be some fifty years ...
— The Drone - A Play in Three Acts • Rutherford Mayne

... By Klimka, who, clutching His hair, drags his head down, Repeating, "He's bowing!" Cries, "Stop, that's enough!" When Klimka has freed him He sits on a log, And says, wiping his face With a broadly-checked muffler, 320 "No wonder he conquered: He ploughs not, he reaps not, Does nothing but doctor The pigs and the horses; Of course ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... hat-case, despatch-box, stick, and umbrella, and brushed off with his handkerchief some of the gritty railway dust that lay drifted in exterior folds and hollows of his coat, rebuttoned that garment with precision, arranged his shirt-collar, stuffed his muffler into his coat-pocket, and made generally that rude sacrifice to the graces with which natty men precede their exit from the dust and ashes ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... an interval of almost complete silence; then came a sudden explosion of orders. Half a dozen motorcycles sprang into crackling life; there was the unmistakable din of a powerful aeroplane engine, which, with no muffler, is noisy enough to wake the dead. Then came the whirring of its propeller. They were sure that if they only dared to raise their heads, they would see the machine rising ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... was securely bound to a chair, and effectively silenced by a very uncomfortable gag improvised out of a block of wood and a muffler. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... gentleman in furred coats, who came in hansom cabs. He thought that she had suitors. There was a tall, thin man who came very often in the afternoons. He was sallow and melancholy, and wore a silk muffler day and night. Glyde thought that he was a foreigner, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... just dreadful! Well, there's one thing,—you shall have one this year, you dear thing!" and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas muffler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her. The visitor laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so. She was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... front of some wondering bystanders, burning incense to the Virgin, who is visible through an open window above a landscape in distant perspective with avenues undulating to the horizon; while a woman, her head dressed in a muffler that is almost a turban, touches the old man's shoulder with one hand and raises the other with an indescribable gesture of surprise and joy, her face expressive of ecstasy. On the left wing kneel the three Kings, their hands uplifted, their eyes raised to Heaven, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... little about springing smartly to attention and nothing whatsoever about the interior economy of a 6-inch gun. Their attire was sketchy, to say the least of it. Even the admiral wore grey flannel trousers, a once white sweater, and coloured muffler, and it is to be feared that an officer from a battleship might have referred to them collectively as a "something lot of pirates." Pirates they may have been, but at the best of times a strict adherence to the uniform regulations is not a fetish of those serving on ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... know everything," said the little girl, fingering a religious medal that shone beneath her brown muffler. "Maybe some one's dropped out. Let's ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell

... silver-gilt handle, Rodolphe had received a seal with the motto Amor nel cor* furthermore, a scarf for a muffler, and, finally, a cigar-case exactly like the Viscount's, that Charles had formerly picked up in the road, and that Emma had kept. These presents, however, humiliated him; he refused several; she insisted, and he ended by obeying, thinking her ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... reached the hotel and entered the office, where a warm fire welcomed us. The little old man undid the muffler and handed it to me. He then removed his hat, and I discovered that it was of straw, and, also, that he was ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... he still communicates in some sort of mask, or muffler: and, we have reason to think, under ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... This done, they rowed off silently to the yawl, which was rolling lazily in the trough of the sea, a quarter of a mile from the shore. Once on board they were regaled with some choice French profanity from the lips of a large man in a sealskin cap and a dirty woollen muffler. This gentleman they addressed as the "patron," and, with clumsy awe, informed him that they had waited at the same spot as before, but nothing had come, until at length Hoel Grall arrived with instructions from the "monsieur" to go on board. Whereupon ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... had delayed them while she spoke, in order to adjust the Princess's muffler over her somewhat dishevelled locks; but Eleanor seeing that her husband was impatient, put a speedy end to her operations, and took ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... countenance for men, and he saw no reason why he should not put a few hanks of yarn into shape useful for himself. He might not have full command of his limbs nor of his eyes, but he did have full command of his fingers. He had begun to knit socks for his own use; and even a muffler, in the hope that on some occasion, during the coming months, he ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... the body of a man. He was fully clothed, but the eyeless skull and parchment-like cheeks showed that he had been long dead. He was dressed as a seaman. A sou'-wester was on his head, and a woollen muffler round his neck, while a blue serge vest and a dark jacket and trousers clothed his body. Several pairs of woollen socks and stockings were on his feet, one of which was tied up with rags, as if it had received some injury. His legs ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... muffler around him, for she could do this better than he, and tied it in a double knot, so that it looked very smart; then she brushed his hat with the palm of her hand, and gave him a hearty kiss. He rode away on the horse that was about to be sold or exchanged. Yes; father ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

... became quite dark he took off his wig and whiskers and went into the town again. Here he bought a long rope, very slender, but still strong enough to support a man's weight, and a grapnel which folded up flat when not in use. Then he went to the George, having wrapped a muffler round his face as if he were suffering with toothache. His basket was standing ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... in strength and action, Van went plunging through the crowd to get his man. But he could not win. Bostwick had speeded up his motor in a panic for haste and his car leaped away like a dragon on wings, the muffler cut-out ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... much work to do; but in intervals of idleness one could always be certain of finding something of interest to see or hear in Steve's office. Usually he would be in front of his drafting-board working on a new design for a muffler or a machine-gun turret or a self-starter, or figuring out the possibility of flying through the Arc de Triomphe, which, he claimed could be done with six feet to spare at each wing-tip. This, and climbing the Eiffel Tower ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... been unusually warm and I thought perhaps his mother did not make him wrap up like you did me, but this morning it was so cold and he was just shivering, but he never had on any overcoat—just his mittens and muffler and cap were his wraps. Of course I noticed it, for nearly everyone else was all bundled up; but I didn't say anything as I did not want to be impolite. After awhile he said, 'My, I am so cold,' and I said: 'Where's your ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw

... his bath of a Friday afternoon. Occasionally he would earn three or four copecks by participating in some special prayer, for a sick person, for instance. These pennies he invariably gave away. Once he gave his muffler to a poor boy. His wife subsequently nagged him to death for it. The next morning he complained of her to one of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... expeditions, since in the midst of war there might be occasions of state when his presence would be convenient. The officer who bore the royal fan and handkerchief had generally the same costume; but sometimes his head was enveloped in a curious kind of cowl or muffler, which covered the whole of it except the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and the upper portion of the cheeks. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... the cat. This morning Colonel Harrison—one of my fathers—almost undressed me to see if my flannels were thick enough, Mrs. Washington gave me a fearful scolding because I went out without a muffler, and even the General is always darting edged glances at the soles of my boots. Yesterday, Laurens, who is two-thirds English, tried to force an umbrella into my hand, but at that I rebelled. If I marry, it will be for the pleasure of taking care of ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... staring fixedly at the distance of the sea. He looked amazingly older than when I had last talked with him. His figure was shrunken, and his face rose thin and white out of a heavy fur overcoat and a large blue muffler. In his eyes there was such a sadness, such an infinite regret, such a profound weariness as can only be seen in the eyes of the senile. He was ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... I heard the slight creaking of a door, and I looked up as a stranger entered. He was a rough-looking man, with a shabby overcoat and a still more disreputable muffler around his throat and the lower part of his face. Considerably annoyed at his intrusion, I turned upon him rather sharply, when, with a mumbled, growling apology for mistaking the room, he shuffled out again and closed the door. I followed him quickly to ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... anxiety lifted from her face at that, and she gazed at the hills with such an exultant fixity that he was able to stare at her at his ease. She was looking very Scotch, and like a small boy, for her velvet tam-o'-shanter was stuck down on her head and she wore a muffler that nearly touched her rather pink little nose. Her jacket was too big for her and her skirt very short, showing her slender legs rising out of large cobbler-botched nailed boots like plant-stems rising out of flower-pots, and these extreme sartorial disproportions ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... had nothing to say to this suggestion, but much concerning the necessity of wearing the neck-muffler, which she found her son had not had on all day. She put it on for him now, and made him promise to put it on for himself when he left the house where he was ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... be done with our stamps. Concrete gun emplacements would look very well on the five-shilling stamp, and the desired effect of secrecy could be obtained by printing them on the back; while we would suggest for the penny stamp a design of a muffler or a mitten with crossed knitting needles in each corner. At the same time an important step could be taken toward popularizing the postal order, by printing on the obverse side of it in red the whole of the first verse of "It's ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various

... roar of the motor as Tom cut out the muffler to gain speed and, a moment later, he and his two friends were sailing aloft with a ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... all hope of ever frightening this rude American family, and contented himself, as a rule, with creeping about the passages in list slippers, with a thick red muffler round his throat for fear of draughts, and a small arquebuse, in case he should be attacked by the twins. The final blow he received occurred on the 19th of September. He had gone downstairs to the great entrance- hall, feeling ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... of the ocean eternally washing the land, has called a 'priestlike task of pure ablution'; but others, faithful to tradition and Saturday night, will dodge this as wasteful. Downstairs in summer is his hat; in winter, his hat, his overcoat, his muffler, and, if the weather compels, his galoshes and perhaps his ear-muffs or ear-bobs. Last thing of all, the Perfect Gentleman will put on his walking-stick; somewhere in this routine he will have shaved and powdered, buckled his wrist-watch, and ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... front of each leg, as low as the shank. The horns, unlike the character of the order generally, have a quadrangular base, and, sweeping inwards, terminate in a sharp point. The tail, about seven inches long, ends in a tuft of stiff hairs. From this remarkable muffler-looking beard, the French have given the species the name of Mouflon a manchettes. From the primitive stock eleven varieties have been reared in this country, of the domesticated sheep, each supposed by their advocates to possess some one or more special ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... after many in foreign climes, was not an unqualified success. On the morning of Christmas Eve I went for a walk and lost myself. After wading through bog systems and bramble entanglements for some hours I came out behind a spinney and there spied a small urchin with red cheeks and a red woollen muffler standing beneath a holly-tree. On sighting me he gave vent to a loud and piteous howl. I asked him where his pain was, and he replied that he wanted some holly for decorations, but was too short to reach it. I thereupon swarmed the shrub, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various

... are cries of "LIVENS." The MAGISTRATE leans forward, and stares with hard compassion at the little girls. LIVENS comes in. He is quiet, with grizzled hair, and a muffler for a collar. He stands beside ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... within the short space of two or three seconds, and before either Lord Antony or Sir Andrew had time or chance to utter a cry or to make the faintest struggle. They were each seized by two men, a muffler was quickly tied round the mouth of each, and they were pinioned to one another back to back, their arms, hands, and ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... find the diamonds down cellar if they do pay us another visit," Betty had said. She had, after some thought, hidden the precious stones in her own room, wrapping the box in some sheets of asbestos, which Allen had left over after putting some on the muffler ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope

... Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats with a worse grace. The reader may well cry out with honest Sir Hugh Evans, "I like not when a 'oman has a great peard: I spy a great peard under her muffler." [It is proper to observe that this passage bears a very close resemblance to a passage in the Rambler (No. 20). The resemblance may possibly be the effect ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... vengeance. The doctor was afraid for his horse; one ear was cut and bleeding and the animal could no longer face the blinding streams of hail; he was covered and the men all got out, burying their heads in their coats; but Ringfield, the worst off, since he had come without gloves or muffler, was for ever casting anxious glances ahead, which Poussette and ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... blow!" he commented, as he held the reins in one hand, and drew more closely about his throat the muffler he had brought with him. "Stand to it, ponies!" Joe called to the sturdy steeds. They had started off at a lively pace, but the snow soon slowed them down. They started up again, however, at the sound of Joe's voice, ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... heard his feet upon the stairs, for he had lost no time in stuffing into his pocket the notes for his address at the banquet, and flying to the rescue of the captive banqueters. As soon as he stepped out of the door of the dormitory, History's knit muffler was wrapped around his mouth, and he was seized and hustled along toward ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... much illness in the parson's home, indeed, but certain early awful days Reuben just remembers; there were white bed-curtains, (he recalls those,) and a face as white lying beneath; the nurse, too, lifting a warning finger at him with a low "hist!" the knocker tied over thickly with a great muffler of cloth, lest the sound might come into the chamber; and then, awful stillness. On a morning later, all the windows are suddenly thrown open, and strange men bring a red coffin into the house, which, after a day or two, goes out borne ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various



Words linked to "Muffler" :   damper, device, damper block, scarf, dash-pot, shock, exhaust system, cushion, exhaust, muffle, piano damper, acoustic device, shock absorber



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