tone

Borrowed from Latin tonus (“sound, tone”) (or through Old French ton[1]), from Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos, “strain, tension, pitch”), from τείνω (teínō, “I stretch”). Doublet of tune, ton, and tonus.

• (UK) enPR: tōn, IPA^(key): /təʊn/
• (US) enPR: tōn, IPA^(key): /toʊn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊn

tone (plural tones)

1. (music) A specific pitch.
2. (music) (in the diatonic scale) An interval of a major second.
3. (music) (in a Gregorian chant) A recitational melody.
4. The character of a sound, especially the timbre of an instrument or voice.
5. General character, mood, or trend.

   Her rousing speech gave an upbeat tone to the rest of the evening.

6. (linguistics) The pitch of a word that distinguishes a difference in meaning, for example in Chinese.
7. (dated) 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.

8. (literature) The manner in which speech or writing is expressed.
   • W. C. Bryant

     Their tone was dissatisfied, almost menacing.

9. (obsolete) State of mind; temper; mood.
   • Bolingbroke

     The strange situation I am in and the melancholy state of public affairs, […] drag the mind down […] from a philosophical tone or temper, to the drudgery of private and public business.

10. The shade or quality of a colour.
    • 2017, Adam Rutherford, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, The Experiment, →ISBN, page 81:

      We make crude visual distinctions and effectively meaningless categorizations based on average skin tones, such as black or white.

11. The favourable effect of a picture produced by the combination of light and shade, or of colours.

    This picture has tone.

12. The definition and firmness of a muscle or organ. see also: tonus
13. (biology) 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.
14. (biology) Normal tension or responsiveness to stimuli.

• (an interval of a major second): whole tone

tone (third-person singular simple present tones, present participle toning, simple past and past participle toned)

1. (transitive) to give a particular tone to
2. (transitive) to change the colour of
3. (transitive) to make (something) firmer
4. (intransitive) to harmonize, especially in colour
5. (transitive) to utter with an affected tone.

• (give a particular tone to):
• (change the colour of): color/colour, dye, paint, tint
• (make firmer): firm, firm up, tone up
• (harmonize): harmonise/harmonize
• (utter with an affected tone):

• betone
• toned
• tone down
• toner
• tone up
• tony, toney (affected tone)

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.

tone

1. (now dialectal) The one (of two).
   • 1485 July 31, Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], (please specify the book number), [London]: […] [by William Caxton], OCLC 71490786; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: Published by David Nutt, […], 1889, OCLC 890162034:

     , Bk.X, Ch.lxiij:

     So wythin the thirde day, there cam to the cité thes two brethirne: the tone hyght Sir Helyus and the other hyght Helake

• tone in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• tone in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

• ETNO, Eton, Note, Teno, ento-, note, teno-

tone

1. plural of toon

From Old Norse tóni, from Latin tonus (“sound, tone”), from Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos, “strain, tension, pitch”), from τείνω (teínō, “I stretch”).

• IPA^(key): /toːnə/, [ˈtˢoːnə]

tone c (singular definite tonen, plural indefinite toner)

1. tone
2. note

tone (imperative ton, infinitive at tone, present tense toner, past tense tonede, perfect tense har tonet)

1. to sound
2. to tone
3. to tint

• “tone” in Den Danske Ordbog

• Audio

  (file)

tone

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of tonen

• toen

tone

1. vocative singular of tonus

From Old Norse tóni, from Latin tonus (“sound, tone”), from Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos, “strain, tension, pitch”), from τείνω (teínō, “I stretch”).

tone m (definite singular tonen, indefinite plural toner, definite plural tonene)

1. a tone (sound, colour etc.)

• halvtone

• “tone” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Old Norse tóni, from Latin tonus (“sound, tone”), from Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos, “strain, tension, pitch”), from τείνω (teínō, “I stretch”).

• IPA^(key): /²tuːnə/

tone m (definite singular tonen, indefinite plural tonar, definite plural tonane)

1. a tone (sound, colour etc.)

• halvtone
• tonekunst

• “tone” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

tone (ma class, plural matone)

1. drop