1. (noun)tone, tone of voice the quality of a person's voice "he began in a conversational tone"; "he spoke in a nervous tone of voice"
2. (noun)tone (linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages "the Beijing dialect uses four tones"
3. (noun)timbre, timber, quality, tone (music) the distinctive property of a complexsound (a voice or noise or musical sound) "the timbre of her soprano was rich and lovely"; "the muffled tones of the broken bell summoned them to meet"
4. (noun)spirit, tone, feel, feeling, flavor, flavour, look, smell the generalatmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people "the feel of the city excited him"; "a clergyman improved the tone of the meeting"; "it had the smell of treason"
5. (noun)shade, tint, tincture, tone a quality of a givencolor that differs slightly from another color "after several trials he mixed the shade of pink that she wanted"
6. (noun)note, musical note, tone a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musicalsound "the singer held the note too long"
7. (noun)tone, pure tone a steadysound without overtones "they tested his hearing with pure tones of different frequencies"
8. (noun)tonicity, tonus, tone the elastictension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimuli "the doctor tested my tonicity"
9. (noun)tone, whole tone, step, whole step a musicalinterval of two semitones
10. (noun)tone 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"
11. (verb)tone, chant, intone utter monotonously and repetitively and rhythmically "The students chanted the same slogan over and over again"
12. (verb)tone, inflect, modulate vary the pitch of one's speech
13. (verb)tone change the color or tone of "tone a negative"
14. (verb)tone change to a colorimage "tone a photographic image"
15. (verb)tone, tone up, strengthen give a healthy elasticity to "Let's tone our muscles"