dumbness (dumnes)

1. Mutene ; silence; abstention from speech; absence of sound. Take hence that once a king; that sullen pride That swells to dumbne . Dryden, Don Sebastian, iii. 1. 2. Incapacity for speaking; inability to utter articulate sounds. See deafne . In the first case the demoniac or madman was dumb; and his dum / me probably arose from the natural turn of his disorder. Farmer , Demoniacs of New Testament, i. §5. dumb-show (dum'shō'), n. 1. A part of a dramatic representation shown pantomimically, chiefly for the sake of exhibiting more of the story than could be otherwise included, but sometimes merely emblematical. Dumbshows were very common in the earlier English dramas. Groundlings who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. Shak ., Hamlet, iii. 2. The Julian feast is to-day, the country expects me; I speak all the dumb - shows my sister chosen for a nymph. Fletcher and Rowley , Maid in the Mill, ii. 1. 2. Gesture without words; pantomime: as, to tell a story in dumb - show.