Tone

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /təʊn/

Definitions

1. The quality or character of a sound, or the general mood or attitude expressed in speech or writing
2. The specific quality of a sound that distinguishes it from others in speech or music ; the overall feeling or attitude conveyed through written or spoken words
3. Characteristic sound properties that make a voice or musical note unique ; the emotional atmosphere or viewpoint expressed in language or writing

Etymology: Tone has a surprisingly tangled ancestry, with two unrelated roots that ended up as one word. The main line runs from Ancient Greek "tónos", meaning strain, tension or pitch, itself from "teínō", to stretch. The Greeks used it for the tightness of a string, and the Romans borrowed it as "tonus", meaning sound or tone. English took the word in its Middle English form, and it has kept that sense of pitch and tension ever since, which is why "tone" still describes a musical note and the emotional colour of a voice or piece of writing. The second, separate source is far more humble. Middle English had a word "tone" that arose from a mishearing of "the one", as in "thet one" being split into "the tone". Scots still preserves the pattern in "the tane". That word is a different thing entirely, and the two only fused in spelling and sound over time.

Synonyms: sound, color, timbre, intonation, pitch

Antonyms: dissonance, discord, flatness