- the quality of a person's voice;
"he began in a conversational tone"
"he spoke in a nervous tone of voice"
- (linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages;
"the Beijing dialect uses four tones"
- (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"
- 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"
- a quality of a given color that differs slightly from another color;
"after several trials he mixed the shade of pink that she wanted"
- a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound;
"the singer held the note too long"
- a steady sound without overtones;
"they tested his hearing with pure tones of different frequencies"
- the elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimuli;
"the doctor tested my tonicity"
- a musical interval of two semitones
- 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"
