Definitions for Tone
toʊntone

Princeton's WordNetRate this definition:4.3 / 4 votes

1. 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"

2. 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"

3. 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"

4. 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"

5. 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"

6. note, musical note, tonenoun

   a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound

   "the singer held the note too long"

7. tone, pure tonenoun

   a steady sound without overtones

   "they tested his hearing with pure tones of different frequencies"

8. tonicity, tonus, tonenoun

   the elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimuli

   "the doctor tested my tonicity"

9. tone, whole tone, step, whole stepnoun

   a musical interval of two semitones

10. 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"

11. tone, chant, intoneverb

    utter monotonously and repetitively and rhythmically

    "The students chanted the same slogan over and over again"

12. tone, inflect, modulateverb

    vary the pitch of one's speech

13. toneverb

    change the color or tone of

    "tone a negative"

14. toneverb

    change to a color image

    "tone a photographic image"

15. tone, tone up, strengthenverb

    give a healthy elasticity to

    "Let's tone our muscles"

Samuel Johnson's DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Tonenoun

   Etymology: ton, Fr. tonus, Lat.

   1. Note; sound.

   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.

   2. Accent; sound of the voice.

   Palamon replies,
   Eager his tone, and ardent were his eyes. Dryden.

   3. A whine; a mournful cry.

   Made children, with your tones, to run for’t
   As bad as bloody-bones, or Lunsford. Hudibras, p. iii.

   4. A particular or affected sound in speaking.5. Elasticity; power of extension and contraction.

   Drinking too great quantities of this decoction may weaken the tone of the stomach. Arbuthnot.

ChatGPTRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. 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 DictionaryRate this definition:5.0 / 2 votes

1. 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

2. Tonenoun

   accent, or inflection or modulation of the voice, as adapted to express emotion or passion

3. 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

4. Tonenoun

   a sound considered as to pitch; as, the seven tones of the octave; she has good high tones

5. 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

6. Tonenoun

   the peculiar quality of sound in any voice or instrument; as, a rich tone, a reedy tone

7. Tonenoun

   a mode or tune or plain chant; as, the Gregorian tones

8. 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

9. Tonenoun

   tonicity; as, arterial tone

10. Tonenoun

    state of mind; temper; mood

11. Tonenoun

    tenor; character; spirit; drift; as, the tone of his remarks was commendatory

12. 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

13. 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

14. Toneverb

    to utter with an affected tone

15. Toneverb

    to give tone, or a particular tone, to; to tune. See Tune, v. t

16. Toneverb

    to bring, as a print, to a certain required shade of color, as by chemical treatment

WikidataRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. 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 DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. 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 ContributionRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. 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  

2. ---

   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  

3. ---

   tone

   A specific sound of music.

   The tones at the opera were so beautiful.

   
   

   Submitted by MaryC on March 10, 2020  

4. ---

   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 ResourcesRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. tone

   Song lyrics by tone -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by tone on the Lyrics.com website.

2. TONE

   What does TONE stand for? -- Explore the various meanings for the TONE acronym on the Abbreviations.com website.

Surnames Frequency by Census RecordsRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. 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

1. • Atmosphere
   • Color
   • Discolor
   • Interval
   • Linguistics
   • Pitch
   • Talk

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'Tone' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #2413

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'Tone' in Written Corpus Frequency: #4435

3. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'Tone' in Nouns Frequency: #910

Anagrams for Tone »

1. note

How to pronounce Tone?

1. Alex

   US English

   David

   US English

   Mark

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Libby

   British

   Mia

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Hayley

   Australian

   Natasha

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

   Priya

   Indian

   Neerja

   Indian

   Zira

   US English

   Oliver

   British

   Wendy

   British

   Fred

   US English

   Tessa

   South African

How to say Tone in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of Tone in Chaldean Numerology is: 3

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of Tone in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9

Examples of Tone in a Sentence

1. Brian Dolan:

   The Fed struck a very dovish tone, marking down its projected rate increase trajectory, while noting overall resilience in the U.S. economy and the absence of inflation pressures, this should be encouraging for risk sentiment and risk assets.

2. Anthony Fauci:

   No one is going to want to tone down things when you see what's going on in a place like New York City.

3. Tim Bagwell:

   I am deeply sad, the Methodist church has always been mainstream, reaching out to people. This sends a different tone ... one of exclusion, not inclusion.

4. Luke Bartholomew:

   Today was a tone-setter for what is to come, the ECB's rhetoric really emphasises the fragile state of the European, and global, economy.

5. Andrew Pyle:

   We're seeing a constructive tone coming back into the markets, which is a spillover from yesterday. But I think there is more hope in this market than actual conviction, these gains could be short lived, especially if we get bad news over the weekend with respect to Greece or Ukraine.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

References

1. ^ Princeton's WordNet
   http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=Tone
2. ^ Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
   https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=Tone
3. ^ ChatGPT
   https://chat.openai.com
4. ^ Webster Dictionary
   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Tone
5. ^ Wikidata
   https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=Tone
6. ^ Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
   https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37683/37683-h/37683-h.htm#:~:text=Tone
7. ^ Surnames Frequency by Census Records
   https://www.census.gov/topics/population/genealogy/data/2010_surnames.html