untune

American  

[uhn-toon, -tyoon] / ʌnˈtun, -ˈtjun /

verb (used with object)

untuned, untuning

1. to render or cause to become out of tune.

   Changes in weather can untune a violin.

2. to discompose; upset, as the mind or emotions.

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Etymology

Origin of untune

First recorded in 1590–1600; un- ² + tune

Example Sentences

The heat could untune a piano half a tone in two hours and rot a dress suit in a matter of days.

From Time Magazine Archive

To my ear the untune is agony; to my music, a discord in my day is death to what would have been written that day.

From A Woman's Will by Caliga, I. H. (Isaac Henry)

Their natural tendency, from the very base of British society, and through all its strongly built gradations, is to look upward: they are not apt to "untune degree."

From Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists by Froude, James Anthony

I drawn nothing lately?— is the work-bag finished?—how accomplished I am!—has the man been to untune the harpsichord?—does it look as if I had been playing on it?

From Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan — Volume 01 by Moore, Thomas

But this is nothing to what follows; for being obliged to make his sense intelligible, we are forced to untune our own verses that we may give his meaning to the reader.

From Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry by Dryden, John