[f. LUTE sb.1 + STRING sb.]
1. A string of (or adapted for) a lute.
1530. Palsgr., 241/2. Lutestryng, cordeav, cordon de lus.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. ci. 143. Long threedes (like to very fine and small lutestrings).
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, III. ii. 61. His iesting spirit, which is now crept into a lute-string, and now gouern’d by stops.
1630. Davenant, Cruel Bro., V. i. Thy wrist vaynes are cut, Heere In this Bason bleed: till drynesse make them curle Like Lute-strings in the fire.
1731. Arbuthnot, Nat. Aliments (1735), 157. A Lute-string will bear a hundred Weight without Rupture.
1820. Keats, Isabella, ii. Her lute-string gave an echo of his name.
1855. Browning, Fra Lippo, 52. There came … A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song.
attrib. 1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, xv. ¶ 9. Fine Lute-string Wyer … is … fastned by twisting about half an Inch of the end of the Lute-string to the rest of the Lute-string.
2. A noctuid moth having lines resembling the strings of a lute on its wings.
1819. G. Samouelle, Entomol. Compend., 402. The lesser Lutestring … The Poplar Lutestring. Ibid., Index, Lutestring moths.
1843. Westwood, Brit. Moths, I. 202.
