Subdued

ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED¹.]

  1.  Reduced to subjection, subjugated, overcome. Also absol.

1604.  Shaks., Oth., V. ii. 348. One, whose subdu’d Eyes,… Drops teares as fast as the Arabian Trees Their Medicinable gumme.

1615.  G. Sandys, Trav., 48. Strengthened both against forraine invasions and revolts of the subdued.

1660.  Milton, Dr. Griffith’s Serm., Wks. 1851, V. 397. [It] will in all probability subject the Subduers to the Subdu’d.

1812.  Crabbe, Tales, xviii. 68. She had a mild, subdued, expiring look.

1837.  Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. IV. v. Lyons contains in it subdued Jacobins; dominant Girondins.

1890.  ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer (1891), 202. A subdued, bronzed, resolved-looking man.

  2.  Reduced in intensity, strength, force or vividness; moderated; toned down.

1822.  [implied in SUBDUEDNESS].

1835.  Lytton, Rienzi, IV. i. Censers of gold … steamed with the odours of Araby, yet so subdued as not to deaden the healthier scent of flowers.

1847.  C. Brontë, Jane Eyre, viii. My language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme. Ibid., xiv. The subdued chat of Adèle.

1849.  Ruskin, Seven Lamps, iii. § 17. 83. Many of the noblest forms are of subdued curvature.

1861.  Flor. Nightingale, Nursing, 59. There are acute cases (particularly a few eye cases…), where a subdued light is necessary.

1877.  Huxley, Physiogr., 203. The effects of subterranean heat in the locality may still manifest themselves in a subdued form.

1912.  Times, 19 Dec., 20/3. (Stock Exchange), There was a more subdued tone.

  Hence Subduedly adv., with subdued sound, light, color, etc.; Subduedness, the condition of being subdued.

1822.  Coleridge, Lett. (1895), 718. In his freest … passages there is a subduedness, a self-checking timidity in his colouring.

1852.  Robertson, Serm., Ser. IV. xxxix. (1863), 294. Meekness and subduedness before God.

1858.  G. Gilfillan, Life Sir T. Wyatt, W.’s Poet. Wks. p. xv. Homely natural feeling of the poetical and the subduedly sensuous.

1891.  Kipling, Light that Failed, xiii. Maisie was crying more subduedly.