Definition of Tone

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Definition of Tone

Tone

Quality, with respect to attendant feeling; the more or less variable complex of emotion accompanying and characterizing a sensation or a conceptual state; as, feeling tone; color tone.

Color quality proper; -- called also hue. Also, a gradation of color, either a hue, or a tint or shade.

The condition of normal balance of a healthy plant in its relations to light, heat, and moisture.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Tonicity; as, arterial tone.

State of mind; temper; mood.

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

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.

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.

To utter with an affected tone.

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

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

Related Definitions:

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Tone Quotations

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.
Friedrich Nietzsche

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.
Friedrich Nietzsche

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'
Lewis Carroll

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.
Marshall McLuhan

The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply.
Truman Capote

I don't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs.
Nancy Reagan

I look at myself and pick out the things I don't like. No matter how much I work out, I never get muscle tone in my butt and hip area.
Tyra Banks

The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind.
Vladimir Nabokov

We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
Samuel Butler

The whole tone of Church teaching in regard to women is, to the last degree, contemptuous and degrading.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Tone Translations

tone in Afrikaans is toon
tone in Dutch is toon, intonatie
tone in German is Ton, Klang
tone in Italian is suono
tone in Portuguese is tom

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