tone

[tone]

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.

...

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.

Noun
a quality of a given color that differs slightly from a primary color; "after several trials he mixed the shade of pink that she wanted"

Noun
(linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages; "the Beijing dialect uses four tones"

Noun
(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"

Noun
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 gathe

Noun
a steady sound without overtones; "they tested his hearing with pure tones of different frequencies"

...

Noun
a musical interval of two semitones

Noun
a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound; "the singer held the note too long"

Noun
the quality of a person''s voice; "he began in a conversational tone"; "he spoke in a nervous tone of voice"

Noun
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"

Noun
the elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimuli; "the doctor tested my tonicity"

Verb
give a healthy elasticity to; "Let''s tone our muscles"

Verb
change to a color image; "tone a photographic image"

Verb
change the color or tone of; "tone a negative"

Verb
of one''s speech, varying the pitch

Verb
utter monotonously and repetitively and rhythmically; "The students chanted the same slogan over and over again"

n.
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.

n.
Accent, or inflection or modulation of the voice, as adapted to express emotion or passion.

n.
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.

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

n.
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.

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

n.
A mode or tune or plain chant; as, the Gregorian tones.

n.
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.

n.
Tonicity; as, arterial tone.

n.
State of mind; temper; mood.

n.
Tenor; character; spirit; drift; as, the tone of his remarks was commendatory.

n.
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.

n.
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.

v. t.
To utter with an affected tone.

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

v. t.
To bring, as a print, to a certain required shade of color, as by chemical treatment.

Tone

Tone , n. [F. ton, L. tonus a sound, tone, fr. Gr. a stretching, straining, raising of the voice, pitch, accent, measure or meter, in pl., modes or keys differing in pitch; akin to to stretch or strain. See Thin, and cf. Monotonous, Thunder, Ton fasion,Tune.] 1. 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.
[Harmony divine] smooths her charming tones.
Tones that with seraph hymns might blend.
2. (Rhet.) Accent, or inflection or modulation of the voice, as adapted to express emotion or passion.
Eager his tone, and ardent were his eyes.
3. 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. (Mus.) (a) A sound considered as to pitch; as, the seven tones of the octave; she has good high tones. (b) 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. (c) The peculiar quality of sound in any voice or instrument; as, a rich tone, a reedy tone. (d) A mode or tune or plain chant; as, the Gregorian tones. &hand; The use of the word tone, both for a sound and for the interval between two sounds or tones, is confusing, but is common -- almost universal. &hand; Nearly every musical sound is composite, consisting of several simultaneous tones having different rates of vibration according to fixed laws, which depend upon the nature of the vibrating body and the mode of excitation. The components (of a composite sound) are called partial tones; that one having the lowest rate of vibration is the fundamental tone, and the other partial tones are called harmonics, or overtones. The vibration ratios of the partial tones composing any sound are expressed by all, or by a part, of the numbers in the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.; and the quality of any sound (the tone color) is due in part to the presence or absence of overtones as represented in this series, and in part to the greater or less intensity of those present as compared with the fundamental tone and with one another. Resultant tones, combination tones, summation tones, difference tones, Tartini's tones (terms only in part synonymous) are produced by the simultaneous sounding of two or more primary (simple or composite) tones. 5. (Med.) 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. &hand; In this sense, the word is metaphorically applied to character or faculties, intellectual and moral; as, his mind has lost its tone. 6. (Physiol.) Tonicity; as, arterial tone. 7. State of mind; temper; mood.
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.
Their tone was dissatisfied, almost menacing.
8. Tenor; character; spirit; drift; as, the tone of his remarks was commendatory. 9. 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. 10. 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. Tone color. (Mus.) see the Note under def. 4, above. -- Tone syllable, an accented syllable. M. Stuart.

Tone

Tone , v. t. [imp. & p. p. Toned ; p. pr. & vb. n. Toning.] 1. To utter with an affected tone. 2. To give tone, or a particular tone, to; to tune. See Tune, v. t. 3. (Photog.) To bring, as a print, to a certain required shade of color, as by chemical treatment. To tone down. (a) To cause to give lower tone or sound; to give a lower tone to. (b) (Paint.) To modify, as color, by making it less brilliant or less crude; to modify, as a composition of color, by making it more harmonius.
Its thousand hues toned down harmoniusly.
(c) Fig.: To moderate or relax; to diminish or weaken the striking characteristics of; to soften.
The best method for the purpose in hand was to employ some one of a character and position suited to get possession of their confidence, and then use it to tone down their religious strictures.
-- To tone up, to cause to give a higher tone or sound; to give a higher tone to; to make more intense; to heighten; to strengthen.

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.

To utter with an affected tone.

...
Usage Examples

I have tried to be a leader. I have tried in my role of being one of the first women at Google, let alone the first woman to have a baby, to really try to set the tone that this is a great place to work for diversity reasons.

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

I mean, you have a general tone of it but it's pretty much you get to come in and you're going to flip this car and it's going to blow up and you're going to come out on fire and you go oh, that's cool, and then you get paid a lot of money.

I like cool jackets - a nice fall or winter coat. You can get a lot of use out of it, and you'll wear it frequently, so it can really set the tone of your uniform for the season.

My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview - how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how to design the style and tone.

The one thing I like about 'Playboy' is they don't have the anorexic look. The women are voluptuous. So I didn't really want to diet. I just wanted to tone up.

Growing up in an Italian family, you use a harsh tone and 10 minutes later everybody forgets about it.

It's like spicy food - sometimes you have to tone it down so more people can enjoy it.

I suppose there's a melancholy tone at the back of the American mind, a sense of something lost. And it's the lost world of Thomas Jefferson. It is the lost sense of innocence that we could live with a very minimal state, with a vast sense of space in which to work out freedom.

Misspelled Form

tone, rtone, 5tone, 6tone, ytone, gtone, rone, 5one, 6one, yone, gone, trone, t5one, t6one, tyone, tgone, tione, t9one, t0one, tpone, tlone, tine, t9ne, t0ne, tpne, tlne, toine, to9ne, to0ne, topne, tolne, tobne, tohne, tojne, tomne, to ne, tobe, tohe, toje, tome, to e, tonbe, tonhe, tonje, tonme, ton e, tonwe, ton3e, ton4e, tonre, tonse, tonde, tonw, ton3, ton4, tonr, tons, tond, tonew, tone3, tone4, toner, tones, toned.

Other Usage Examples

Since I was there in the very beginning, I know the history of the characters. So, I make comments about the tone and sometimes remind the writers that we've done that before.

He has such a patronizing tone and manner, and such a sarcastic sense of humor. I found him rather brutal, a kind of elegant brutality which appealed. No, I think he came pretty much off the page.

But if you read Jane Austen, you know that she had a wicked sense of humor. Not only was she funny, but her early writing was very dark and had a gothic tone to it.

I probably wouldn't be singing if not for Michael Jackson. When I started singing, I didn't like my tone until my mom put me on to Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, so listening to the way they used their instrument helped me get more comfortable with my own.

And the greeter is what sets the tone for this company and I've been on TV a little bit this morning.

I think that people are tired. They're tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

I was very pleased that the positive things about me and my game outshone the aggressive style of play I use. I would never tone that down, because I believe in that style of play, and I believe that you can play rough on the court and still be a good sport.

A commercial society whose members are essentially ascetic and indifferent in social ritual has to be provided with blueprints and specifications for evoking the right tone for every occasion.

My workouts include aerobic exercise for a healthy cardiovascular system strength training to maintain muscle tone and bone density core strength exercise for a stable mid-section and stretching to maintain mobility.

In the execution of Presidential decisions work to be true to his views, in fact and tone.