tone

to give a particular tone to

Noun

  1. A specific pitch.
  2. An interval of a major second.
  3. A recitational melody.
  4. The character of a sound, especially the timbre of an instrument or voice.
  5. The pitch of a word's sound that distinguishes a difference in meaning, as for example in Chinese.
  6. A whining style of speaking; a kind of mournful or artificial strain of voice; an affected speaking with a measured rhythm and a regular rise and fall of the voice.
    • Children often read with a tone.
  7. The manner in which speech or writing is expressed, especially the aspects of diction (word choice), connotation, emotiveness, and register.
    • Their tone was dissatisfied, almost menacing. - 1850, William Cullen Bryant, Letters of a Traveller:
  8. State of mind; temper; mood.
    • c. 1714 (undated), Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, letter to Alexander Pope The strange situation I am in and the melancholy state of public affairs, […] drag the mind down […] from a philosophical tone or...
  9. The shade or quality of a colour.
    • We make crude visual distinctions and effectively meaningless categorizations based on average skin tones, such as black or white. - 2017, Adam Rutherford, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, The Experiment,...
  10. The favourable effect of a picture produced by the combination of light and shade, or of colours.
    • This picture has tone.
  11. The definition and firmness of a muscle or organ; see also: tonus.
  12. The state of a living body or of any of its organs or parts in which the functions are healthy and performed with due vigor.

Origin

From Middle English ton, tone, from Latin tonus (“sound, tone”) (possibly through Old French ton), from Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos, “strain, tension, pitch”), from τείνω (teínō, “to stretch”). Doublet of tune, ton, tonos, and tonus.

Forms

tones

Synonyms

whole tone

Related

atonal diatonic intonation intone monotone ringtone tonal tonality tone-deaf tone-deafness toneme tonic tonicity tune

Derived

allotone basitony betone checked tone combination tone comfort tone contour tone demitone departing tone dialling tone dial tone ditone downtone dual tone multi-frequency duotone earth tone eigentone engaged tone entering tone equitone escape tone falling tone flexatone floating tone

Pronoun

  1. the one (of two)

Origin

From Middle English tone, ton, toon, from the incorrect division of thet one (“the/that one”). Compare Scots tane in the tane; see also tother.

Verb

  1. to give a particular tone to
  2. to change the colour of
  3. to make (something) firmer
  4. to utter with an affected tone.

Forms

tones toning toned

Synonyms

color colour dye paint tint firm firm up tone up

Derived

betone toned tone down tone in toner tone up tone with tony toney