tone
Other forms: tones; toned; toning
A tone is the kind of sound you hear in a musical note, or in a person's voice live or in writing. A newspaper article should be objective, but a poem can bring up all kinds of emotions, depending on the tone.
The word tone often refers to sound, as in music, or the feeling conveyed by the way someone speaks: "His tone of voice told me I was in trouble." It can also be used to describe the atmosphere of a place — its flavor or spirit — or the shades of meaning in a work that might reveal the larger intentions of an author. If your body has tone, its muscular structure is strong and appears well defined.
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(music) the distinctive property of a complex sound (a voice or noise or musical sound)“the muffled tones of the broken bell summoned them to meet”types:harmonicany of a series of musical tones whose frequencies are integral multiples of the frequency of a fundamentalresonancethe quality imparted to voiced speech sounds by the action of the resonating chambers of the throat and mouth and nasal cavitiesnasalitya quality of the voice that is produced by nasal resonatorsplangency, resonance, reverberance, ringing, sonority, sonorousness, vibrancyhaving the character of a loud deep sound; the quality of being resonantregister(music) the timbre that is characteristic of a certain range and manner of production of the human voice or of different pipe organ stops or of different musical instrumentshead register, head tone, head voicethe higher ranges of the voice in speaking or singing; the vibrations of sung notes are felt in the headtype of:sound propertyan attribute of sound
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a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical soundsynonyms: musical note, notetypes:supertonic(music) the second note of a diatonic scalemediant(music) the third note of a diatonic scale; midway between the tonic and the dominantsubdominant(music) the fourth note of the diatonic scaledominant(music) the fifth note of the diatonic scalesubmediant(music) the sixth note of a major or minor scale (or the third below the tonic)middle Cthe note designated by the first ledger line below the treble staff; 261.63 hertzchorda combination of three or more notes that blend harmoniously when sounded togethersemibreve, whole notea musical note having the longest time value (equal to four beats in common time)demisemiquaver, thirty-second notea musical note having the time value of a thirty-second of a whole notehemidemisemiquaver, sixty-fourth notea musical note having the time value of a sixty-fourth of a whole noteblue notea flattened third or seventhmonotonea single tone repeated with different words or different rhythms (especially in rendering liturgical texts)C(music) the keynote of the scale of C majorarpeggioa chord whose notes are played in rapid succession rather than simultaneouslysforzandoan accented chordseventh chorda triad with a seventh addedtype of:musical notation(music) notation used by musicians
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a musical interval of two semitonessynonyms: step, whole step, whole tone
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a steady sound without overtonessynonyms: pure tonetypes:harmonica tone that is a component of a complex soundovertone, partial, partial tonea harmonic with a frequency that is a multiple of the fundamental frequencytype of:
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(linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages“the Beijing dialect uses four tones”type of:pitchthe property of sound that varies with variation in the frequency of vibration
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vary the pitch of one's speech
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utter monotonously and repetitively and rhythmically
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the quality of something (an act or a piece of writing) that reveals the attitudes and presuppositions of the author“the general tone of articles appearing in the newspapers is that the government should withdraw”“from the tone of her behavior I gathered that I had outstayed my welcome”type of:qualityan essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone
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the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people
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the quality of a person's voice
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a quality of a given color that differs slightly from another color
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change to a color image
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change the color or tone of
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the elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimulitypes:catatoniaextreme tonus; muscular rigidity; a common symptom in catatonic schizophreniamyotoniaabnormally long muscular contractions; slow relaxation of a muscle after a contractionacromyotoniamyotonia of the extremities only; causes spastic deformity of the hand or footThomsen's disease, myotonia congenitaa mild, rare, congenital form of myotonia characterized by muscle stiffness
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give a healthy elasticity to“Let's tone our muscles”synonyms: strengthen, tone up
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Vocabulary lists containing tone
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