obmutescent /ob-myuew-TESS-ənt/. adjective. Willfully silent. Obstinately mute. From Latin obmutescere (grow mute), from ob- (to, toward) + mutescere (to become mute).
“The Finns’ obmutescence seemed especially to go hand in hand with that other most famous Finnish characteristic, their drinking.” (Michael Booth)
“Crimond, who broods over it all like an obmutescent winged avenger, scaring the living daylights out of his friends, is really successful only when off stage…” (Stephen Fry)
“Jud was a monologist by nature, whom Destiny, with customary blundering, had set in a profession wherein he was bereaved, for the greater portion of his time, of an audience. ¶ Therefore, I was manna in the desert of Jud’s obmutescence.” (O. Henry)
“Obmutescence (n.) The state or condition of obstinately or willfully refusing to speak. Anyone who has ever been the parent of, or been related to, or been in the same room with an obstinate child will immediately recognize the behavior defined by this word.” (Ammon Shea)
“The cheerless obmutescence which would descend about him was an omen of a sudden exit to his study leaving his wife to cope as best she could with the guests.” (Noel Annan)
“The simple truth has to be told: how he loved his country, and for another and a broader love, growing out of his first passion, fought it; and being small by comparison, and finding no giant of the Philistines disposed to receive a stone in his fore-skull, pummelled the obmutescent mass, to the confusion of a conceivable epic.” (George Meredith)