Art & MusicGreek → English
Tone
/toʊn/noun
A sound of definite pitch, or the quality of voice, colour or feeling in something.
The Greek roots
τόνος
tónos
a stretching, tension
Literally: “a stretching”
Follow a root:τόνος13 words
The story of the word
Τόνος is the noun of τείνειν, to stretch, and it named the tension of a string before it named the note that tension produces. Every later sense follows the same line outward: pitch, then manner of speaking, then the general character of a painting or a letter. Muscle tone is the sense doubling back to the start, since a toned muscle is a stretched one. The Greek accents are called τόνοι for the same reason.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
tunetonicintonationtetanus
In a sentence
It was not what she said but the tone, flat and slightly amused.