What does tone mean?
Definitions for tone
toʊntone
This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word tone.
Princeton's WordNet
tone, tone of voicenoun
the quality of a person's voice
"he began in a conversational tone"; "he spoke in a nervous tone of voice"
tonenoun
(linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages
"the Beijing dialect uses four tones"
timbre, timber, quality, tonenoun
(music) the distinctive property of a complex sound (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"
spirit, tone, feel, feeling, flavor, flavour, look, smellnoun
the general atmosphere 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"
shade, tint, tincture, tonenoun
a quality of a given color that differs slightly from another color
"after several trials he mixed the shade of pink that she wanted"
note, musical note, tonenoun
a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound
"the singer held the note too long"
tone, pure tonenoun
a steady sound without overtones
"they tested his hearing with pure tones of different frequencies"
tonicity, tonus, tonenoun
the elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimuli
"the doctor tested my tonicity"
tone, whole tone, step, whole stepnoun
a musical interval of two semitones
toneverb
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"
tone, chant, intoneverb
utter monotonously and repetitively and rhythmically
"The students chanted the same slogan over and over again"
tone, inflect, modulateverb
vary the pitch of one's speech
toneverb
change the color or tone of
"tone a negative"
toneverb
change to a color image
"tone a photographic image"
tone, tone up, strengthenverb
give a healthy elasticity to
"Let's tone our muscles"
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
Tonenoun
Etymology: ton, Fr. tonus, Lat.
Sounds called tones are ever equal. Francis Bacon, Nat. Hist.
The strength of a voice or sound makes a difference in the loudness or softness, but not in the tone. Francis Bacon, Nat. Hist.
In their motions harmony divine
So smooths her charming tones, that God’s own ear
Listens delighted. John Milton, Par. Lost, b. v.Palamon replies,
Eager his tone, and ardent were his eyes. Dryden.Made children, with your tones, to run for’t
As bad as bloody-bones, or Lunsford. Hudibras, p. iii.Drinking too great quantities of this decoction may weaken the tone of the stomach. Arbuthnot.
ChatGPT
tone
Tone refers to the attitude or approach that the author takes toward the work’s central theme or subject. In literature, this is conveyed through the choice of words or viewpoint of the writer on a particular subject. In music, tone refers to the quality of sound or pitch. In communication, it refers to the mood or emotion conveyed through the speaker's words, expressions, or overall demeanor.
Webster Dictionary
Tonenoun
sound, or the character of a sound, or a sound considered as of this or that character; as, a low, high, loud, grave, acute, sweet, or harsh tone
Tonenoun
accent, or inflection or modulation of the voice, as adapted to express emotion or passion
Tonenoun
a whining style of speaking; a kind of mournful or artificial strain of voice; an affected speaking with a measured rhythm ahd a regular rise and fall of the voice; as, children often read with a tone
Tonenoun
a sound considered as to pitch; as, the seven tones of the octave; she has good high tones
Tonenoun
the larger kind of interval between contiguous sounds in the diatonic scale, the smaller being called a semitone as, a whole tone too flat; raise it a tone
Tonenoun
the peculiar quality of sound in any voice or instrument; as, a rich tone, a reedy tone
Tonenoun
a mode or tune or plain chant; as, the Gregorian tones
Tonenoun
that state of a body, or of any of its organs or parts, in which the animal functions are healthy and performed with due vigor
Tonenoun
tonicity; as, arterial tone
Tonenoun
state of mind; temper; mood
Tonenoun
tenor; character; spirit; drift; as, the tone of his remarks was commendatory
Tonenoun
general or prevailing character or style, as of morals, manners, or sentiment, in reference to a scale of high and low; as, a low tone of morals; a tone of elevated sentiment; a courtly tone of manners
Tonenoun
the general effect of a picture produced by the combination of light and shade, together with color in the case of a painting; -- commonly used in a favorable sense; as, this picture has tone
Toneverb
to utter with an affected tone
Toneverb
to give tone, or a particular tone, to; to tune. See Tune, v. t
Toneverb
to bring, as a print, to a certain required shade of color, as by chemical treatment
Wikidata
Tone
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Such tonal phonemes are sometimes called tonemes, where each toneme is a lexically distinct variant of the same phoneme, that is phonetically distinguished from other tonemes only by the tone of the vowel. Tonal languages are extremely common in Africa, East Asia, and Central America, but rare elsewhere in Asia and in Europe; as many as seventy percent of world languages may be tonal. In many tonal African languages, such as most Bantu languages, tones are distinguished by their pitch level relative to each other, known as a register tone system. In multisyllable words, a single tone may be carried by the entire word, rather than a different tone on each syllable. Often grammatical information, such as past versus present, "I" versus "you", or positive versus negative, is conveyed solely by tone.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
Tone
tōn, n. the character of a sound: quality of the voice: harmony of the colours of a painting, also its characteristic or prevailing effect as due to the management of chiaroscuro and to the effect of light upon the quality of colour: (phot.) the shade or colour of a finished positive picture: (gram.) syllabic stress, special accent given to a syllable: character or style: state of mind: mood: a healthy state of the body.—v.t. to utter with an affected tone: to intone, to utter in a drawling way: to give tone or quality to, in respect either of sound or colour: to alter or modify the colour.—adj. Tō′nal.—n. Tonal′ity.—adjs. Toned, having a tone (in compounds); Tone′less.—Tone down, to give a lower tone to, to moderate, to soften, to harmonise the colours of as to light and shade, as a painting. [L. tonus—Gr. tonos, a sound—teinō, to stretch.]
Editors Contribution
tone
A feeling communicated through speech.
The tone of her voice was always moderate, calm and it made us feel like we were a united team.
Submitted by MaryC on April 14, 2020
tone
A quantity of color.
The tone of the paint is important as it is for the living room and a calm feeling is being created.
Submitted by MaryC on April 14, 2020
tone
A specific sound of music.
The tones at the opera were so beautiful.
Submitted by MaryC on March 10, 2020
tone
The sound of a persons voice.
The tone of her voice was so beautiful, we could listen to it all day.
Submitted by MaryC on March 10, 2020
Suggested Resources
tone
Song lyrics by tone -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by tone on the Lyrics.com website.
TONE
What does TONE stand for? -- Explore the various meanings for the TONE acronym on the Abbreviations.com website.
Surnames Frequency by Census Records
TONE
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Tone is ranked #20434 in terms of the most common surnames in America.
The Tone surname appeared 1,300 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 would have the surname Tone.
77.9% or 1,013 total occurrences were White.
7.8% or 102 total occurrences were Black.
7.6% or 99 total occurrences were Asian.
3.3% or 43 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
2.2% or 29 total occurrences were of two or more races.
1% or 14 total occurrences were American Indian or Alaskan Native.
Matched Categories
British National Corpus
Spoken Corpus Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'tone' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #2413
Written Corpus Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'tone' in Written Corpus Frequency: #4435
Nouns Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'tone' in Nouns Frequency: #910
Anagrams for tone »
note
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology
The numerical value of tone in Chaldean Numerology is: 3
Pythagorean Numerology
The numerical value of tone in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9
Examples of tone in a Sentence
This December will play host to two of the year’s most hotly anticipated announcements with Mario Draghi and Janet Yellen looking to set the tone for trading in 2016,” said Farbod Mimeh http://www.digitallook.com/news/market-report-europe/europe-open-stocks-waver-after-mixed-chinese-data-as-investors-eye-ecb--948735.html#sthash.gJwWJ67A.dpuf
The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories. Have to do it.
I think Upton set the tone hitting it hard into the bullpen on the first at-bat, and we continued to have quality at bats from there.
We believe this move sets the wrong tone for both parties to move forward and reach an agreement, we remain committed to continued safe operations and productive negotiations.
Muhammad is doing fine at this point, his speaking style is lower in tone, and as the day goes on, he doesn't speak as well as he does in the morning. But Muhammad's a strong person for his age and for the disease he has.
Popularity rank by frequency of use
References
Translations for tone
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
- نغمة, نغمArabic
- toCatalan, Valencian
- tonus, tónCzech
- tônWelsh
- tonefald, styrke, nuance, harmonisere, klang, forstærke, spændingstilstand, farvetone, tonus, toneDanish
- Farbton, Ton, StimmungGerman
- tonoSpanish
- ääni, nuotti, äänensävy, tooniFinnish
- tonFrench
- ton, glór, cumaIrish
- טון, צלילHebrew
- tonoItalian
- 声調Japanese
- nipiKalaallisut, Greenlandic
- សូរKhmer
- 聲調, 성조Korean
- sonoLatin
- atspalvis, tonusas, tonasLithuanian
- tonisLatvian
- feo, mamadi-doko, haabom-peo, mampirindra, nôty, hery, tondrom-peoMalagasy
- nada, tonaMalay
- အသံအနိမ့်အမြင့်Burmese
- toon, hele toon, noot, timbreDutch
- toneNorwegian
- zhítsʼóózNavajo, Navaho
- odcień, tonPolish
- tomPortuguese
- интонация, тон, гармонировать, оттенок, тонусRussian
- nyans, klang, helton, ton, tonaSwedish
- kitoneSwahili
- เสียงThai
- سرUrdu
- âm sắc, 聲調, thanh, thanh điệu, tiếng, nốt, giọng, sắcVietnamese
- 音Chinese
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